The article mentions that Hurd is also a recursive acronym, but doesn't go into any more details.
After looking it up on Wikipedia, I see why not:
It's time [to] explain the meaning of "Hurd". "Hurd" stands for "Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons". And, then, "Hird" stands for "Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth". We have here, to my knowledge, the first software to be named by a pair of mutually recursive acronyms.
I think the author's intended implication is absolutely that it's a dollar because the USA invented the computer. The two problems I have is that:
It's just a lazy bit of thinking in an otherwise excellent and internationally-minded article and so it stuck out to me too.