Gates was (and arguably still is) an enormous asshole and has only recently started spending money on “charity” and PR to improve his public image (similar to Carnegie). That you’re willing to let him off the hook for all of his past evils only shows that spending a tiny fraction of their ill-earned gains on PR will wipe their slate clean and people like you will let them off the hook.
If you let Gates, Carnegie, etc off the hook for their rotten past, expect future generations to let Musk et al. off the hook once they buy back their reputation when they get old.
Many of them are voting for Trump because the Democratic Party has abandoned them entirely for decades now. It’s stupid to fall for his lies, but he’s at least bothering to address them as a demographic in need of attention (with lies, of course).
Listening to NPR the other day, there was a piece on how many of the unions aren’t endorsing Harris (either candidate, actually) and that it’s because the working class whites men that make up the unions aren’t ready for a mixed-race female president. Of course jumping right to blaming the voters of bigotry instead of admitting that neither Harris, nor Biden or the party in general, has done anything to earn a union endorsement. If they were just bigots, wouldn’t they be endorsing Trump?