he's taking his ball and going home, the financial aspect isn't load bearing (god damn claude ruined this) in his decision, it's a rationalization. if it were significant, he wouldn't refuse to hand it over to someone who still wants to do it.

A social media site isn't like a free software project. People are trusting you in a way that you cannot just hand over to another entity. (It's more like a SaaS business, in that way.) Some instances have managed it, but only to trusted community members, and never (to my knowledge) without some degree of strife.