I think it just takes quite a few moral failings to even achieve that level of wealth in the first place in the vast majority of cases.

Here specifically, these people are authors and IP holders in a society that places a lot of value in ignorance and in very chauvinist and racist ideas. By hook or by crook, they’ve made something original. They have some merit, and you would expect them of all people to see those societal failings for what they are. To not comment on them, or to uphold them, or to mask them, (arguably all the same thing) is a decision they made in their work. I think we vastly overestimate how easy it is to do that across an entire body of independent work if it doesn’t align with your beliefs.

It makes sense that a person who has the merits and will to do something like that, again, entirely without challenging such obvious failures (as most in their position would), would be chosen to win the broad favor of a society that desperately does not want to be challenged or its failings acknowledged (esp ruling class, the ones with something to lose and wealth to spare to push these things), and would gain a lot of its wealth. Especially in ye old early-internet world when people weren’t discovered as easily. Then, when their platform is secure, the mask slips.

It’s not a conspiracy or an aberration, it’s survivorship bias. These people are a product of our society. We have to reckon with that.

edit: I realized I could expand on what I meant in a few places so I sprinkled a bit more in.