Lefevere has always been like this. He is the model of a non-political dictator. It is just that today he has a platform to make it all public. I can only guess why at his time of life he feels compelled to keep doing this stuff but I think, like a lot of money men, he is (still) in it for the power.

He grandstands in front of his own public knowing there is a market and an audience for it. And when other media elsewhere reproduce it elsewhere that it doesn't stand up to examination by modern mores.

He doesn't do it out of any particular feeling for the people involved. Those people are assets. In that strict sense it's not personal. I don't know if all his BS has any real impact on the contractual negotiations with agents. Where it does get personal is for him. He gets a lot out of those negotiations and the power plays in those are what keep him motivated because, as he himself keeps repeating ad nauseam, at his age he no longer needs the money. If that's how it is, then all the trash talk is motivated by that, and it betrays who he is underneath it all, an ignorant peasant who has nevertheless accrued and now clings on to power in a limited sphere.