Eliezer was quite clear that he would do nothing that violates his own moral standards. He was also quite clear (though perhaps joking) that he didn’t even want to continue to listen to folks who don’t pay their fair share.
He was quite clear that he didn’t want to continue listening to people who thought that arguing about the specific output of CEV, at the object level, was a useful activity, and that he would listen to anyone who could make substantive intellectual contributions to the actual problems at hand, regardless of their donations or lack thereof (“It goes without saying that anyone wishing to point out a problem is welcome to do so. Likewise for talking about the technical side of Friendly AI.” — the part right after the last paragraph you quoted...). You are taking a mailing list moderation experiment and blowing it way out of proportion; he was essentially saying “In my experience, this activity is fun, easy, and useless, and it is therefore tempting to do it in place of actually helping; therefore, if you want take up people’s time by doing that on SL4, my privately-operated discussion space that I don’t actually have to let you use at all if I don’t want to, then you have to agree to do something I do consider useful; if you disagree, then you can do it wherever the hell you want aside from SL4.” That’s it. Nothing there could be interpreted remotely as selling influence or even access. I’ve disputed aspects of SIAI’s PR, but I don’t even think a typical member of the public (with minimal background sufficient to understand the terms used) would read it that way.
He was quite clear that he didn’t want to continue listening to people who thought that arguing about the specific output of CEV, at the object level, was a useful activity, and that he would listen to anyone who could make substantive intellectual contributions to the actual problems at hand, regardless of their donations or lack thereof (“It goes without saying that anyone wishing to point out a problem is welcome to do so. Likewise for talking about the technical side of Friendly AI.” — the part right after the last paragraph you quoted...). You are taking a mailing list moderation experiment and blowing it way out of proportion; he was essentially saying “In my experience, this activity is fun, easy, and useless, and it is therefore tempting to do it in place of actually helping; therefore, if you want take up people’s time by doing that on SL4, my privately-operated discussion space that I don’t actually have to let you use at all if I don’t want to, then you have to agree to do something I do consider useful; if you disagree, then you can do it wherever the hell you want aside from SL4.” That’s it. Nothing there could be interpreted remotely as selling influence or even access. I’ve disputed aspects of SIAI’s PR, but I don’t even think a typical member of the public (with minimal background sufficient to understand the terms used) would read it that way.