Big Oil has done this in the past too. I remember reading 'Private Empire' about ExxonMobil and the previous CEO was funding all of these PHD researchers to challenge climate science research in the early 2000s. They were quite successful at it too.

Fortunately when Rex Tillerson (current Secretary of State), who was trained as an engineer, took over ExxonMobil he stopped the company from taking a climate denial position and took some minor steps to reverse that position, such as investing in some green tech companies. This was largely due to the fact they got a bad name from doing it and they otherwise had a very rigid clean cut image. So it's important to call these companies out when they do it. Despite what people think corporations do respond to bad press.

Especially companies run by engineers and scientists, they can be persuaded to stop being anti-science. Now if only we could get more STEM people into politics on the right... One thing lawyers aren't known for is an affinity for numbers and science.