Back when this statement was made - 11 years ago - nvidia were a lot worst, especially for the kernel developers. A lot has change, and improved in those 11 years.
But people still like to hang on to the old hate and don’t see or want to see any progress being actually made. I an fairly sure that Linus even said they were not as bad as they used to be. But I cannot find that quote amongst all the results for that one angry statement he made - people and media much prefer to hate on things than actually see things improve.