Gates (and Buffet via Gates) invests huge sums in science and tech via his foundation. Elon Musk funded the $100M XPrize for carbon removal. Yuri Milner funds the Breakthrough Prize in fundamental physics. Sergei Brin and Mark Zuckerberg are also breakthrough prize funders. Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt are also major funders of X Prizes.

The list goes on and on. These things just aren’t widely reported because they are boring and don’t fit narratives favored by much of the press.