[makomk]

The focus of the piece was, to quote the headline, "Trump’s Aggressive Advocacy of Malaria Drug". The article leads into the claim by talking about how that advocacy "has raised questions about his motives". Literally the only reason to mention Trump's "small personal financial interest in Sanofi" in this context is to suggest that interest is, in fact, his motive. Everything leading up to that paragraph is background recapping of stuff people already know; the article is structured with this as the key point. Crucially, the New York Times piece also omitted to mention the one piece of information that made this conspiracy theory utterly ridiculous and that Snopes used to debunk it: just how tiny that financial interest really was.

Now, a few of the more cynical and distrusting people did realise that probably meant his interest was so small that the narrative the Times would pushing would fall apart if they mentioned actual numbers, and they were right - but all the people who trusted the most respected and prominent paper on the planet not to mislead them into a nonsensical conspiracy theory took that narrative as it was intended to be taken and spread it all over social media.