Multilateral leadership in digital policy promises to be inclusive, but instead delivers exclusivity. They frame digital policy as a lever to reduce inequality, modernise states, and protect rights amid rapid technological change. Because of their financial scale and normative authority, they go beyond funding projects and define what counts as legitimate digital policy. While inclusion is central to the discourse of multilateral digital funding, exclusion is deeply embedded in its operational design. The irony is stark: the more central digital policy becomes to democracy, the more cautious and conservative its funding architecture grows.