This isn’t true at all. Daniel Micay has stated multiple times the goal isn’t to degoogle, it’s to provide a secure and private OS. They worked tirelessly to integrate GMS compatibility layer and give users the choice to install sandboxed Google play for app compatability.

GrapheneOS has said countless times that by using Linux and other open source softwares that Google contributes massive amounts of code, you ARE inherently trusting them to not be malicious nitter.1d4.us/GrapheneOS/…/1672998518573740033#m

Google play does what it says and they are very open about what data they collect, which is obviously a lot. GrapheneOS stops much of this collection through sandboxing, where you can deny any permissions you desire.