On June 23, 2026, the Economist published a story about billionaires titled “The Rise of the Deserving Rich.” It claimed that “today’s billionaires are more likely than yesterday’s to have made their own money.” The claim is easily dismissed. The more interesting question is why the magazine bothered to publish it.

Under any reasonable definition of the word “made,” no one “makes” the equivalent of a billion dollars alone. No one ever has. But there have always been people who have possessed vastly more money than others. To sustain such inequality, a legitimizing narrative is essential. But do the Economist’s anonymous writers really believe what they are writing?

The penultimate sentence of the penultimate paragraph of the article — described by the magazine as an “expert analysis” — claims: “Mr. [Elon] Musk is self-made, which is all well and good, but he has made no secret of his desire to sway elections, both in America and abroad.” The writers then suggest that perhaps donations to political parties should be capped, rather than taxing the billionaires away. It’s worth asking: Who is telling this story, and why?