I recognize that it's hard for a public company, but there are plenty of private companies that have plenty of cash and benefit from Open Source.

Aside: I think for a public company it might even work well if ESG stared incorporating Open Source contributions.

In practice I doubt this is much of a barrier. Shareholders don't inspect every line item of a company's budget. For a decent-sized company, a few hundred thousand or even a million or so $$ per year would probably go more or less unnoticed by shareholders.

Remember that it's a common -- incorrect -- trope that public companies are legally required to seek maximum profit, etc. It's a lot more complicated and nuanced than that.