I did not miss the word "solo." Honnold is not the worlds greatest solo climber by a Longshot. He's the greatest "free solo" climber. A ton of solo climbers are way better than him, they just use ropes
You're getting caught up in technical terminology whereas this article is written for non-climbers. Those of us that have done the activity know the difference between solo and free solo, but in the same way that you can't expect articles for non-climbers to get the distinction between sport and trad right (climbing is a sport, so it's all sport climbing, right?), You can't expect them to get the solo/free-solo thing right either.