This doesn't hold up to a cursory analysis of Carlsen's rating. You can see Carlsen's historical ELO score on FIDE's website and look at it year over year and the difference between Carlsen and the #2, #3, #4, etc... is pretty consistent and very impressive. Usually the difference between a player ranked N and a player ranked N + 1 is about 5-10 ELO points, but Carlsen's is consistently 30+ including at this moment.
https://ratings.fide.com/top_lists.phtml