The "attack on the authority" is rather flat though.

>appeal to authority

How so? He’s talking about what happened to him in the context of his professional expertise/contributions. It’s totally valid for him to talk about this subject. His experience, relevance, etc. are self apparent. No one is saying “because he’s an expert” to explain everything.

They literally (using AI) wrote him an email about his work and contributions. His expertise can’t be removed from the situation even if we want to.