Tao is famous for being the world's most singular and inspiring genius. It's kind of a meme position* that most people accept because they think everyone else accepts it, but for people of a certain inclination, it makes anything he might say into a Pronouncement to read depths into. If you think someone is possibly the greatest mathematician of all time, you'd be interested in everything they think!

(* I think one could very legitimately view him as the top researcher in harmonic analysis in the world - he is a great mathematician - but it's not clear to me how people go from that to Epochal Genius and his extreme celebrity status across STEM)