Not sure about this guy's report, but yeah. It's not limited to mic access either. At least when I heard of it, these apps were also seeing what else you had installed to build a bigger profile on you.

EU will slap them with another billion fine and nothing will change

I believe it is. I've witnessed several such incidents within family circles over the last three years. Someone would "talk" about something with a family member over WhatsApp only to see that topic all over META platforms the next day.