From a recent New York Times real estate article: "The reclusive and litigious developer Sheldon Solow, for example, has been party to hundreds of lawsuits, while the closemouthed heirs of Sol Goldman's estate rarely sell any of their vast holdings."
I've written in the past about how:
"Reclusive billionaire" is one of those stereotypes that the Times likes to use even if it isn't accurate.
My authoritative Webster's Second Unabridged dictionary describes reclusive as someone living in reclusion, in "solitary confinement" or "secluded" from the world like a "monk or hermit."
But journalists now use the word to describe any rich person who doesn't drop everything and rush to the phone whenever a reporter calls. Any rich person who is any less receptive to press inquiries than Donald Trump or Senator Charles Schumer is routinely described as "reclusive," even if the person has friends and business colleagues and an active family or social life.
In this case, the Times use of the term in relation to Mr. Solow is strange, as the newspaper carried an interview with him just the other day. Amy Goldman, far from being "closemouthed," as the Times describes her, granted the Times an interview in 2012 for the newspaper's Vows column and in 2002 (here), in 2003 (here), 2004 (here) and 2010 (here) in connection with her work with squash and melons. There was a feature about her and her heirloom vegetables in the Financial Times just the other day. It just doesn't seem to me to be accurate to describe someone who has given five interviews to the New York Times as "closemouthed," yet this seems to be the newspaper's standard tactic for punishing in print anyone who doesn't drop whatever he or she is doing and sprint to the telephone any time that a Times reporter wants a conversation.