He comes off as a charming enough fellow from the videos of him and I have no doubt he's a neighborly guy, but that doesn't prove someone isn't a grifter. If anything, those kinds of personalities excel at being shady.
Honestly, I believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I imagine there were legitimate aspirations along the way in his career dealing with this tech, but it fell apart somewhere, and since he's around retirement age now, he's probably heavily playing in "grey" areas to provide a living for himself at our expense.