Come on.
This story would have one believe that these two pilots are not privy to the clearances given to the other. Unless things have changed drastically there is only one controller and one radio frequency for all of the active runways at an airport. It was hardly against the law to ask for clarification of a clearance that a controller gave that seemed to conflict with one given a few seconds earlier.
ML/NJ
The scenario is perfectly plausible.
First, one aircraft could have been on ground frequency while the other aircraft, on tower frequency, received a take off clearance. The aircraft on ground would not have heard the other aircraft’s clearance.
Second, the pilots could have assumed that the tower believed that separation criteria were met and that both aircraft had good clearances.
And last, just because a pilot hears a clearance given to another aircraft doesn’t mean that they have adequate situational awareness to picture how that airplanes flight path will affect their own flight path.