He didn't step away. He made a post where he "stepped down" as the project lead and instead got replaced by a "GrapheneOS Foundation director", of which there are 3 including him.
That post has been deleted.
As far as I can tell, nothing has changed other than obscuring the leadership of the project a tiny bit. strcat is still active here in the comments.
If so, I'm glad he's still project lead. I would have immediately written off GrapheneOS as a lost cause if he wasn't.
I have spent many hours browsing his comment history and reading his extremely detailed posts on Android and smartphone security. He obviously knows what he's doing. Not only is he competent, it's also clear that he cares way too much about GrapheneOS and is personally invested in it.
Competence and actually giving a shit are the two attributes I respect most in a person. I wouldn't want anyone else making decisions.
And that's coming from a guy who publicly disagreed with him on some ideological issue literally three days ago:
That post has been deleted.
As far as I can tell, nothing has changed other than obscuring the leadership of the project a tiny bit. strcat is still active here in the comments.