The problem is that it's a language that doesn't need to change much. It doesn't really need a committee. People that recognise this don't bother getting involved. That leaves it vulnerable to entryists.
You cannot pick and choose which C++ features to use in practice if you use any kind of library including the standard library.
His contributions to the C23 standard are dire.
He has only stopped contribution to Rust because he created an enormous drama over a conference talk being downgraded from keynote to normal. This isn't something that saves his reputation. The opposite is the case. It makes him seem like even more of a massive tool.
He gets upset and complains whenever anyone pushes back on his awful, ill-thought-out attempts to contribute to C or C++. He unsubtly hints that anyone that disagrees with him is a racist. In other words, he wields his skin colour as an weapon when he doesn't get his own way.
> whose pronouns are they/them btw
No, I don't think so. He clearly is a guy, presents himself as a guy, wears suits to conferences, and has a guy's name. There is no indication anywhere on any of his social media of any request that people not refer to him in the natural way that people normal refer to men.
Also it is not transphobic not to recognise 'they/them'/gender non-binariness. 'Transphobic', as the term implies, relates to transgender/transsexual. 'Trans' is a latin term. It essentially means 'across'. It refers to people that transition from one gender to the other gender. There are just two. This is the entire point of the concept of transgender: that there are just two of them.
This has become a 'controversial' thing to say in the US, but almost nowhere else is it even remotely controversial. It is blindingly obvious. And it has nothing to do with 'transphobia'. It would be 'transphobic' to say that a man can't become a woman.
I don't care if you label me as transphobic to say that a man can't become a woman. A man, after all, cannot become a woman. I do care if you label me as transphobic for referring to as a bloke a bloke who clearly presents himself as a bloke, acts like a bloke, and is a bloke, on every level, and who doesn't indicate in any of his bios on Linkedin, Twitter, his own website or apparently anywhere else that he should be referred to in any other way. Apparently this is just some secret knowledge that you have acquired. You've told me it, but why should I believe you? You're a random commenter on the bloody internet. You simply are not a reliable source in any way. And if I don't believe your random claim, for which you have provided no evidence, I am 'transphobic'? Fuck. Right. Off.
You could make that argument about almost any technology (certainly in the IT world). C23 is out this year which will make it the 6th "official" version - obviously a much more slowly evolving language than most, but nonetheless still being fairly regularly "updated and extended".
There's plenty of things I don't care for in C++, but I can (and do) choose not to use those parts. The few times recently I had to work with pure "C" code felt, well, decidedly primitive - but there was no choice but to grin and bear it. Which works great for some contexts, but I'm not sure I can imagine tolerating it for large-scale application development.