I’m also considering alternatives to Proton myself. I’ve seen the privacy-oriented communities give a bunch of options. Search “Privacy” and you’ll see them listed. Tuta probably isn’t bad as a paid account but the free app left a lot to be desired the last time I checked (no message search or sorting like Proton).

There’s been controversy over a founder’s public backing of the US Republican party.

Unfortunately those two sets of interests typically aren’t mutually exclusive (except for protectionism or the rare case like that which might hamper trade), so he could largely do both.