The longer that Donald Trump refuses to release his tax returns, the more speculation grows that he has something to hide. And the 104-page financial-disclosure form that Trump recently filed with the Federal Election Commission, which he released in lieu of a more detailed 1040 form, is doing little to quiet the rumors that the self-proclaimed billionaire may not be as rich as he portrays himself to be.

Nobody is doubting that the presumptive Republican nominee is exceptionally well-off. Several tax experts and fellow rich people told Politico that, even in the absence of seeing his tax returns, they were willing to bet that Trump was technically a low-grade billionaire. But it’s possible, many say, that Trump pockets far less profit than his business revenues suggest. The fact that he’s sold several of his assets—including up to $7 million in fund assets and $9 million in individual securities—to cover his campaign debt suggests that he probably doesn’t have enough cash on hand to easily cover the costs of his campaign outright. That’s not something one would expect from a man who claims he is worth “in excess of TEN BILLION DOLLARS” (the capitalization is Trump’s). In addition, the real estate mogul has added over $50 million in debt to his ledger, Politico reports, putting his total debt somewhere between $315 million and $500 million, and possibly more.

“If he is swimming in so much cash for all his holdings, why is he selling this stuff to raise cash?” one anonymous, fellow elite asked Politico, apparently rhetorically. “You would see that he doesn’t have the money that he claims to have and he’s not paying much of anything in taxes,” a hedge-fund manager, also anonymous to avoid Trump’s wrath, told the news outlet.

Judging from several recent moves, Trump sure looks like he’s trying to protect his money. On Tuesday, The Guardian reported that Trump was moving his trademarks to Delaware, America’s office park-cum-tax haven, to avoid paying taxes on his name brand. And just hours later, Trump blew up at reporters during a press conference in which he boasted about how much money he had given veterans’ organizations, and then criticized the media when they questioned his motivations. “I wanted to keep it private, if we could, I wanted to keep it private, because I don’t think it’s anybody’s business if I want to send money to the vets,” said Trump, who allegedly raised the money when he publicly skipped a Fox presidential debate to hold a televised fundraiser instead. (A subsequent AP report revealed that a significant number of those charities only received the money after the Washington Post ran an article questioning where the Trump donations went.)

Evaluating Trump’s net worth has been a financial-world parlor game for years, and in the past decade, several reporters and colleagues have hinted that it may not be as high as Trump wishes it to appear. Forbes recently estimated that Trump’s net worth is less than half what he claims, and journalist Timothy O’Brien, who saw Trump’s tax returns but is legally prevented from talking about them in detail, has implied that Trump’s income is much lower than he often suggests. (O’Brien was sued by Trump for libel after he claimed in a 2005 book that Trump’s real net worth was as low as $150 million-$250 million. The suit was dismissed.)

While Trump has lied about a great many things without serious repercussions, the revelation that his net worth is not what it appears could be extraordinarily damaging. His tax returns could also reveal that he keeps money in offshore bank accounts, or that he pays an insultingly low tax rate, but neither strikes at the core of the brand Trump has worked to build for decades. At the heart of Trump’s White House bid is the promise that he cannot be bought by Wall Street interests, and that he has the business acumen to be trusted to bring jobs and prosperity back to the United States. Winning is central to Trump’s appeal, as is the seductively lavish lifestyle he has sold to the American public, full of gilded columns and penthouses full of beauty queens and the tremendously classy Trump Steaks. If Trump is unmasked as anything less than “really rich”, as he likes to brag, it could be the one untruth that his supporters could not forgive—or, at the very least, the one lie that causes the rest of his house of cards to come tumbling down. (Hillary Clinton, aware of this possibility, has been preparing similar lines of attack against Trump, and plans to use them against the billionaire all summer.)

Then again, there’s always been something distinctly American about playing Gatsby. And even if there’s only one comma missing between his being a multi-millionaire and a billionaire, Trump is still far more wealthy than his average supporter, whose median household income is roughly $72,000 a year—higher than the median American income, but much lower than the $250,000 that Trump’s predecessor, Mitt Romney, described as “middle class” in 2012. Sure, his ostentatious portrayal of wealth notably does not match the behaviors of his billionaire ilk; no true billionaire would ever wear a shiny tie like Trump does. But by virtue of having more money than his supporters ever will, and much more than his entire field of opponents combined, the potential revelation that Trump is not rich rich may not matter—especially when his critics are fellow .01 percenters. All truth is relative, or at least subjective, anyway, when it comes to Trump. As long as he firmly believes that he’s a stupendously rich man (by his own admission, his net worth fluctuates according to his feelings), that’s the world his supporters will live in, too.