He's criticizing Markov for not disclosing the conflict, not for the conflict itself. Hiding your affiliation in a scientific publication is far outside the norms of science, and they should be criticized for that. The publication we are discussing — "That Chip Has Sailed" — dismisses Markov in a few paragraph and spends the bulk its arguments on Cheng.
Markov's article has been on arxiv since 2023 before the perceived conflict.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.09633
All his affiliations have been disclosed and likely known to Jeff Dean. Jeff is simply unable to respond to Markov's article in the technical dimension and is resorting to dirty tricks instead.
