It wasn't a neutral statement but I don't think I'd call it a personal attack. It's a claim about reputation.

There's also a significant difference between attacking a fellow user in a flamewar style comment vs. talking about a powerful public figure; we don't allow the worst kinds of personal attack in the latter case either*, but the bar is necessarily higher.

* https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...