There is a whole religion about tests that is worth attacking though

Sure. If his take was "100% unit test coverage is a waste of time" I think that's not unreasonable. You could make a case that the "you must write tests before you write code, every single time!" stuff is needlessly dogmatic. I also think that sometimes people focus too much on unit tests to the detriment of end to end tests that better model actual system interactions.

None of these were Theo's take. He was pushing the idea that unit tests in general were a waste of time because you could be shipping new features instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvBHyip4peo for an example of this. The nicest possible interpretation on this is that he's deliberately saying something he knows is wrong to attract attention.