Apple killed the iPhone mini because it only had a 4-6% share of sales of all iPhone models. While some people may really want this, I can't imaging that it'll get more than 5% of iPhone sales (after maybe an initial higher novelty peak).
In a lot of ways the iphone has always been the Achilles Heel of the ultra wealthy, no matter how many billions you had, you could never do fancier than a 1500 buck iphone. Apple IMO is just trying to capitalize on this phenomenon and capture the pretentious luxury market. Anecdotally the galaxy fold did really well with the obnoxiously rich circles in my country, people who previously all had iphones. So they kinda have to do it as well now.