Most likely he doesn't know, as he isn't a phone OEM.
In reality pretty much no Android phone runs a stock upstream Linux. They all have horrible proprietary modified kernels.
So no, Android isn't even Linux in the narrow technical sense of the kernel it runs.
(The Android userland, of course, is an entirely different OS that has nothing at all whatsoever to do with Linux or any other flavor of UNIX, current or historical.)
Wrong question. Android phones run proprietary kernels. So by definition they aren't Linux, even if technically the largest parts of their codebase are taken from the Linux source tree. (Yes, all Android phones technically violate the GPL; in spirit if not in letter of the law. Unfortunately that ship sailed long, long ago.)