Matrix is nearly as old today as XMPP was when the Matrix project was started, and Matrix is still such a pile of shit standard that there's STILL only one server implementation and one client. That's actually not how the standard was designed; if Matrix had been a successful project, according to their own goals, the ecosystem would look a lot more like XMPP than it does.

Comparing XMPP at 11 years old to Matrix today makes it abundantly clear that the main thing Element LLC does is waste European public grant funds

Actually, Matrix has a series of server and client implementations.

Servers: https://matrix.org/ecosystem/servers/

Clients: https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/

Also, imho Matrix is a better standard than xmpp, because of what PunchHamster said and the better feature set. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion :)