LOL - I highly doubt that! Guys like this are going to milk the hoax for every dime they can steal from the taxpayer.
Actually, the article fee charged by Elsevier does not go to the author(s), it goes to Elsevier. In addition, he likely paid a fairly stiff fee to Elsevier to have his article published. I've seen fees of up to $2000/page for getting an article published in a top scholarly journal.
In addition, those journals typically have sky-high subscription rates. I've no idea why scholarly publishing is so expensive, but I do know that authors don't get a cent from it. I have articles published in Elsevier journals.
No ma’am, he did not pay a fee. Academic publishing does not work that way for journals of this sort. Instead, he gave the article freely. This is the norm.
Only certain non-profit organizations charge “page fees”, which authors must pony up before an article sees print.