That's old Superman. The reboot Superman, all of the more recent ones, have pretty consistently had Lex Luthor (older business magnate, or newer old-school mad scientist, or combination thereof) demonstrate that his major malfunction is envy: he can't stand that there's someone out there more powerful and/or admired than he is. It doesn't mean he actually wants to rule the world, only to be confident that he could if he wanted to. It's those people who demonstrate that they can stop him if they want to who drive him up the wall. For instance, one recurring bit for a few years was that Luthor hates Superman but doesn't care much about Clark Kent, while he doesn't care that much about Batman but despises Bruce Wayne.

The latter is because Batman doesn't normally become that involved in his schemes, but Bruce Wayne has, several times, stopped some of Luthor's schemes by using the Wayne fortune and business interests.