The rich, especially the mega rich, are on a different plane of existence despite them pretending to be one of the people. Elon Musk is a fucken tosser but people look up to him as if he's single handedly changed the world...yeah, single handedly with all the little minions doing all the work, any thousands of them including people who come up with the ideas Elon Musk calls his own.
Like you say, greed flows downwards and no matter what form it takes, or to what degree, greed is greed and it seems to be the new fashion. (Maybe not so new, but more prevalent.)