This seems like an ad hominem? "He has weird kinks, therefore his theories are incorrect." Should we investigate the sex lives of every Nobel Prize winner to figure out which prizes need to be rescinded?
The cult aspect is more salient. Ultimately the Atlantic piece comes down to controlling people, which is a little cult-like.
Lots of Nobel Prizes ought to be rescinded.
https://lexfridman.com/andrew-scull-transcript#the-ice-pick-...
What you do in private is up to you. But when you're inviting members of your congregation to orgies in the congregation's compound, I think you earn the label. My admittedly third-hand understanding is that this is the dynamic people allude to. And even if you discredit the "sex" part, it has the hallmarks of a cult. A hermetic community committed to unfalsifiable beliefs about the coming apocalypse.
To be fair, I don't know if any of this applies to the parent story; I'm just replying to the sub-thread.