It usually means that 300 people were involved in the project at different stages of its lifetime. It probably also includes the people involved in sourcing the material, tools, people, workspace, etc. That’s probably 20 people who likely never touched the final product. There likely was also some marketing and business people involved. They did probably put hands on the final product for a photo op.
The author of this is really twisting the story in his own favor. He leaves out the part where he launched public personal attacks against other faculty and students.
His department did try to work with him so that he could teach his class (which was completely outside his field of expertise, and is therefore against the general policies). They wanted him to co-teach with someone with knowledge in the field, but at that point he had completely ostricisized himself and no one wanted to work with him.
This is absolutely a situation where someone fucked around with a loaded gun, shot themselves in the foot and is now mad at everyone else because they didn’t help him shoot someone else.
Other than being north Korean and using a fake identity, this sounds like the Key and Peele sketch when their plan to rob a bank involves getting jobs at the bank and collecting a salary, and then doing that for years. Full stop.
Learning how to do remote IT work seems like a good living for anyone with a decent internet connection.