This will be the first burn I've skipped in the last 7. Burning man has prominently featured the rich as long as I've been going. It was no more "for" the rich when I started going than it was last year. If you're wealthy, you can hang out on the cool toys you brought to the burn and people will be happy to ride on them with you.
That being said, burning man has never exactly been cheap, but it also has never exactly been expensive. You can spend as much or as little as you want each year. If all you get is a ticket, a used tent, and a weeks' worth of water & cheap food, it can easily run under $600 all told (last year our shared food budget for better than that was $150 each).
Yeah, this is a weird article. The author mentions going there as if to establish their credentials, then holds up these billionaires attending as if they're fish out of water.
Not sure about Zuckerberg, but I can find a reference of Elon Musk attending in at least 2004 and Google famously had their first doodle when they were all out of the office for Burning Man in 1998[0], more than a decade before the author attended. Burning Man might be changing, but these people aren't exactly interlopers.
That being said, burning man has never exactly been cheap, but it also has never exactly been expensive. You can spend as much or as little as you want each year. If all you get is a ticket, a used tent, and a weeks' worth of water & cheap food, it can easily run under $600 all told (last year our shared food budget for better than that was $150 each).
You make what you want of the burn.