Because traditional media like newspapers, even one like NYT that's handled the last couple of decades as well as any, never miss a chance to take a potshot at the upstarts over in SV, especially when something like the current election influence brouhaha has them already on the back foot.

You're right; it would be much more honest to ask about the influence of Saudi money and Saudi oil in American business, government, and society more generally. But that's not a conversation anyone close to power wants to have; for one thing, the conclusions are uncomfortable, and for another, no one's hands are clean.