Has he paid to inflate his Patreon number?
On the one hand he’s an egomaniac who would do anything to maintain the fiction of success.
On the other hand he is so tight with money it’s hard to imagine him spending anything on his business if he can avoid it.
So who knows? I think it’s possible but not likely.
The working assumption should be that there really are still shockingly high numbers of patrons who haven’t yet jumped ship, or who have joined while somehow remaining oblivious to LE’s behaviour.
His real trouble is that his videos are rubbish and he knows it and he hates doing them. Any reprieve on the patron front is more like extra time added to a chore he desperately wants to escape.