Unfortunately he does have significant power within the wikimedia foundation (parent of wikipedia). He’s got a permanent seat on the board.

Thankfully wikipedia editors tend to act quite independently of wikimedia. But this sort of weighing opinion acting like they have sway on a controversial topic by Jimmy Wales (especially in the midst of wikipedia getting threats from the federal government), worries me a little that wikipedia may have its editorial independence under threat. (A talk page comment is still relatively minor, thankfully.)

This is why Wikipedia will remain a trusted source for a generation and Grokipedia will be a trivia question in 5 years. Even as people turn to LLMs for knowledge, the talk page and open history with all the old versions archived will make it a respected source of truth.

Just because you created something cool or useful it does not mean your word is gospel!

He doesn’t claim that, he’s just chiming in with an opinion.