I wish GrapheneOS the best. If their mission is user security and freedom, transparency is necessary. As far as I can tell, there is little public information or indications of trust. Daniel Micay posts on this thread that the names of the directors (Micay, Dmytro Mukhomor, and Khalykbek Yelshibekov) is publicly available, but that is very little information and isn't nearly sufficient to facilitate trust.

Their website grapheneos.org says nothing I can find about who or what is behind it; that is a red flag. I don't think Micay or Mukhomor are even mentioned. Github doesn't seem to say much either (not that end users will know about or look at Github).

I read that Mukhomor is running things, which is something I just learned despite following GrapheneOS - was there an annoucement? Is Mukhomor's bio anywhere? Who the heck is Mukhomor? Users' privacy depends on that person - very few have the time and ability to audit the code, and probably nobody has the ability and time to audit the code thoroughly enough that we don't need to trust Mukhomor, as well as Micay, Yelshibekov, and probably others we don't know about. Why should I trust Mukhomor, Khalykbek, and the unknown others?

Also, Google and Motorola, part of Lenovo which is subject to the Chinese government [0], are not the most encouraging partners. I know all the debate behind it and perhaps there are no good alternatives and I'm glad GrapheneOS is diversifying its hardware, but GrapheneOS should provide openness on why they trust Google and Motorola.

I have reasons to trust Linus Torvalds and other Linux leaders, Theo de Raadt, Mozilla, and many others - not perfect reasons, but some indications. I have reasons to trust Daniel Micay based on history and public activities.

[0] I know Google can be influenced by the US government; it's not the same thing but indeed also an issue, especially with the current administration's embrace of pressuring business and against individual freedom (e.g., Anthropic).