it's not normal for a self-described businessman to give out money for free: so what's his long term plan behind all of this?

> For the IRC networks such as freenode, they are a vital network for open source developers and communities which I think we can all agree would be very upsetting if that was to be interrupted.

this statement is so disingenuous it sounds like the product of a PR department

running a large IRC network in 2018 can be done on AWS/GCP for hobby scale money, so it's not as if freenode risks disappearing without his patronage... however your/christel's income would, hence my (and others) concerns about the purchase of influence

(personally: if my "employer" hired Karpeles as their CTO I'd be out of there so fast it'd make your head spin)