Justice Thomas has repeatedly said he thinks questions from the bench should be unnecessary, and are given the way the court operatates (An attorney only has a set amount of time for arguments)rude and self aggrandizing. If you can't make your argument in your brief or your statement, argument from the bench won't help. And given the time limits, will cause huge harm to a litigant's case.
His position on this has been clear forever.
As far as Thomas is concerned, his silence is good manners.
That is an excuse for being incapable of asking a question. There is no "good manners" about it when process dictates a different means of handling an issue.
A litigant has 30 minutes, and any time the judges use in asking questions comes out of the litigant's time. Thomas hated it when judges wasted his time this way when he was a litigant.
If you are practicing before the US Supreme court in a case that has certiori, it can be assumed that you are hot stuff who is prepared, and has prepared all your arguments ahead of time. In your written materials, you have also answered any objections.
There are also 8 other justices who are also there to ask questions. You can assume any reasonable, and given the vanity of these guys quite a few unreasonable questions will be asked.
Thomas just hates the practice of interrupting lawyers during their presentation. The lawyers he is daling with are not wet behind the ears graduates of a cow college with a barely passing grade on the bar exam. These are supposedly the scum of the legal profession floating on the very top of the US Bar. They had to supply huge amounts of paper along with the filing explaining their position. Any questions the justices should have should be in that filing.