Yeah, but that's disingenuous. He knew not everyone keeps up with their pledges or that people might defend him anyway. He knew he was still gonna receive money despite having no real intention to work on the game in the near future.Except that he has told everyone NOT to pledge while he's still trying to figure his stuff out, it reads on his page, but if people don't pay attention to that and still keeps pledging, well that's on them then.
If he genuinely didn't want it he could've paused his own account or suspended it or any other number of things. He could've changed the pledge from month-based to release-based like other devs did when they took long breaks.
But no, he kept it open and even reactivated it afterwards knowing full well he'd be getting money for nothing.