I agree that Kim Dotcom is not likely to be on Russia's payroll, but, as you said, he's simply small minded, spiteful, and more or less accept whatever narrative that empire feeds them.
Most likely he just hate US for a good reason and gonna support anything anti-US. In his particular case he probably just needs a country that not gonna extradite him to US no matter how bad the country is.
I just seriously doubt that likes of Dotcom, Musk or Trump need to be on Putin payroll. They just all have their own agenda to sell "strong russia, good putin" narrative.
