The silence started even before the ban was made. Kaj asked for community input and at that point Eliezer could have simply said: "Kaj, I trust you to do what's right on the issue." That would have made Kaj's job easier. Especially given what Kaj wrote on facebook over his own emotional state, that would have been a nice thing to do.

I don't think silence means that there's a unified front. To the extend that a unified front is high value, Eliezer could have said: "Hey, I like it that Kaj has taken action on this issue."

Not counting months of silence while people whined about mass downvoting in open threads.