But is it true that "clean code" makes the adaptation to changing requirements easier? I saw a few testimonies saying otherwise.
There's lots of ways to do this poorly and well. There's no process for it. That's a feature. I feel like a lot of the flak clean code gets boils down to, "I followed it dogmatically and look what it made me do!" It didn't make you do anything; it's trying to teach you aesthetics, not a process. Internalize the aesthetics and you won't need a rigid process.
Obviously when you do this you probably need more code than you'd normally write. That can be viewed as a maintenance burden in some situations, esp. when you don't have product market fit. Again, this shows that treating clean code like some process that always produces better code in every situation is extremely naive.