Have you ever interacted with a volunteer organization?
If you show up for a tea & cookies meet-and-greet and aren't careful, they'll nominate you for chair just because no one else wants it, and "showed up once to a scheduled event" is a higher bar than half the other members have met in while.
I don't think he ever fully gave up his "top maintainer" status or gave away the repo. He just let Jian have defacto maintainership because no one else was really contributing
If you show up for a tea & cookies meet-and-greet and aren't careful, they'll nominate you for chair just because no one else wants it, and "showed up once to a scheduled event" is a higher bar than half the other members have met in while.