This isn't an article by the NYT. It's an opinion piece by someone unrelated to the newspaper:
Jonathan Taplin is the director emeritus of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Innovation Lab and the author of “Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy.”
Opinion pieces are typically paid. I suspect world leaders and billionaires are not paid, though.
The Times does decide what to print, even if they print an unpaid Putin. They would presumably decline to print a letter from Kim Jong Un about how he shot 38 under par, including five holes-in-one.
Jonathan Taplin is the director emeritus of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Innovation Lab and the author of “Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy.”