Yashar Ali is venting about modern billionaires — almost certainly Elon Musk — using social media to spread misinformation instead of doing traditional Gilded Age philanthropy like funding libraries or museums. The underlying premise tracks with reality: Musk recently settled an SEC lawsuit over his 2022 Twitter stock disclosures, paying $1.5 million on allegations he cheated other investors out of $150 million. What the post leaves out is that today's tech billionaires do still fund major institutions (Gates Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg, Bezos Earth Fund) — the shift isn't an absence of philanthropy but the addition of direct political megaphones that didn't exist in the Carnegie era.