I'm not an expert or part of the community and haven't been following too closely. But I vaguely remember there was a story where he said he transferred contro

I'm not an expert or part of the community and haven't been following too closely. But I vaguely remember there was a story where he said he transferred control of some aspect of WP to a non-profit organization not controlled by him, with a press release and everything, but then later that day control was transferred back to him without telling anyone. In any case, I believe it's pretty clear that most people who rely on WordPress had no idea that it is almost singularly controlled by him. Whether this was done via deception or not is indeed a good question.