Sounds more like he’s willing to offer input than actually interested in being deeply involved. Makes sense, the article even calls his tag CliffyB but I remember many years ago he said he doesn’t like that name. I got the vibe, like I do from a lot of people who reach the upper areas of game dev, that he was not too keen on it all anymore.
That all being said, I would be far more interested In a gears where he had offered some design input.