> Why doesn’t the author even mention this ...

Because the question that belies all of this is whether still makes financial or economic sense in the age of LLMs for tax-payers to fund mathematics research.

Up until recently, they've had a true ivory-tower to dismiss such criticism, but as LLMs have demonstrated, that approach won't survive going forward, so pure mathematics are up in arms. They genuinely don't know how to justify their jobs.