Participation by elites in neoliberalism was the reason why the term has a negative connotation in the first place...

My point is "they don't participate if it's inherently smearing". They are careful about their public selves.

This means that they must believe it has become defendable.

I understood you very well. But maybe we are not talking about the same "elites" because I have no idea how you get the idea. They didn't care about the connotation back then. Why should the negativity of it be relevant today?

I was thinking of financial elites btw.