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No he was not.

The fix was a few hours, the customer called him regularly. The CTO had no understanding that a basic SQL Insert shouldn't take a second.

This fix smoothed all response times on all queries and that customer never called aabout this issue again.

That's how you chase efficiency/quality which is one of the CTOs responsibility. Small effort for huge gains are the most optimal changes.

Huge gains? What was the impact of this change, considering the only context that we have is that it was not important to the customer? Answer should be expressed in terms of cost, revenue, profit.

I don’t doubt the CTO was exercising poor judgement, but I do doubt that op was communicating his concerns in a way that was tailored to the audience

If the CTO was right about the premise it'd be fine, but much more likely he pulled the "everyone is happy with 1s" out of his arse and then used his position/authority to bully the team.