Here's the thing about Kojima; He's a known creative, with name value and a track record of success. So he's always going to be in very solid position. The question mark was whether he had the skills to run an independent studio and produce quality work in a timely fashion - a question that was answered definitively with Death Stranding. Regardless of anyone's feelings on the type of product delivered, I don't think anyone could argue that technically it was extremely impressive for a new IP turned around on a relatively short schedule.
Yes, he had a lot of help from Guerrilla and Sony generally, but it was still extremely impressive for a new studio. As (for example) MS discovered with The Initiative, its not just about acquiring talent and funding them well - its about focus and productivity. Kojima got Death Stranding out the door, polished and bug free in 3 years, more or less from scratch. That's a serious achievement in today's scene, and it absolutely would not have gone unnoticed by the corporate bean-counters.