Larry Ellison is hosting a fundraiser for Donald Trump next week; while Ellison has consistently backed Republicans, he wasn't a major Trump donor until now
the most significant display of support from a major tech titan for the president, by far,” @teddyschleifer reports https://www.vox.com/... Teddy Schleifer / @teddyschleifer : “It signals what I and many others have always feared,” says one employee. “Oracle is the type of place where you'll work with many lovely people who you share common ideals with, but those ideals have to be left at the door in service of the company.” https://www.vox.com/... Alan Vargas / @thealanvargas : Hey Los Angeles friends come protest with us because trash is entering the county. https://www.desertsun.com/... Dan Gillmor / @dangillmor : Oracle has always been one of the sleazier operations in Silicon Valley... https://twitter.com/... Jeremiah Lee / @jeremiahlee : He wants a federal cloud contract and perhaps a Supreme Court ruling on API design. There's no amount of money in the world that would make me help Trump get re-elected. I can't wait to tax this billionaire. https://twitter.com/... Rebecca Ballhaus / @rebeccaballhaus : Ahead of Oracle founder Larry Ellison's Trump fundraiser next week, read @JamesVGrimaldi & co. on the lengths Oracle has gone to in Washington to increase government scrutiny of other top tech companies. https://www.wsj.com/... Ted Mann / @tmannwsj : Great peek at the sausage-making from @JamesVGrimaldi @johndmckinnon and Brody Mullins. A letter from members of Congress opposing Amazon's DOD cloud computing contract was actually written by lobbyists at Oracle (who wanted the contract for themselves). https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/... Ben Pershing / @benpershing : Why are America's tech giants on the back foot in Washington? One answer is Kenneth Glueck. https://www.wsj.com/... Teddy Schleifer / @teddyschleifer : Also a top political adviser to...Trump fundraiser Larry Ellison. https://twitter.com/... Amit Paranjape / @aparanjape : Larry Ellison is doing an unthinkable thing for a tech titan: Hosting a fundraiser for Donald Trump It's the most significant endorsement that Trump has gotten from a Silicon Valley leader. https://www.vox.com/... Joe Ortiz / @leojtravis10 : Disgusting but not a surprise that Oracle wants to kill our republic plus trying to ultimately score in their copyright battle against Google over Java APIs. https://twitter.com/... Dan Graziano / @dangraziano : Another billionaire scared of the revolution. Shocker https://twitter.com/... Matt Gabriele / @prof_gabriele : not super sure why this is shocking. tech bros are oligarchs and care about their money more than policies/ ethics/ etc. https://twitter.com/... @fredbenenson : From the dept. of in-need-of-another-reason-to-hate- oracle: https://twitter.com/... Carla Marinucci / @cmarinucci : —>"Ellison will host supporters on a golf outing at his Porcupine Creek home. For $100,000, supporters can join a golf outing and have their photo taken with the president. For $250,000, contributors get a photo, golf outing and can participate in a round-table discussion." https://twitter.com/... Justin Hendrix / @justinhendrix : Disgusting, @Oracle @larryellison. You are in service to bigotry and despotism. https://twitter.com/... Nicole Perlroth / @nicoleperlroth : Whoa. Didn't see this one coming. https://twitter.com/... David Ruddock / @rdrv3 : larry ellison is literally a cartoon villain https://twitter.com/... Jonathan Alter / @jonathanalter : I always knew this guy was a dope, no matter how rich he is. https://twitter.com/... Teddy Schleifer / @teddyschleifer : Our story: Larry Ellison is doing an unthinkable thing for a tech titan: Hosting a fundraiser for Donald Trump https://www.vox.com/... Judd Apatow / @juddapatow : Imagine having billions of dollar and just not caring if the world burns. What more do they need? They spend all their time investing in life extension research because it would be so awful to die when you have so much cash. No amount of money is enough. There is no sacrifice. https://twitter.com/... Teddy Schleifer / @teddyschleifer : Larry Ellison's net worth at Trump's inauguration: $43 billion Larry Ellison's net worth today: $63 billion https://www.vox.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Larry Ellison has given to Republicans for years, but this fundraiser at his Porcupine Creek estate is his first move into major Trump-tier giving — and per Teddy Schleifer's reporting, by far the most significant display of support for the president from any major tech titan. Inside Oracle, it landed badly enough that employees described leaving their ideals 'at the door,' and within a week roughly 300 workers worldwide staged a walkout to protest the fundraiser.
What makes this worth tracking is where the arc goes: months later Trump publicly blessed Oracle's TikTok bid while calling Ellison 'a tremendous guy,' and years on, a $45M donation to a pro-Trump group had deepened Ellison's access in ways that benefited both Oracle and his son's acquisition ambitions.
First-order effects
- Ellison crosses from routine Republican donor into top-tier Trump support, making Oracle the most visibly Trump-aligned major tech company and prompting immediate internal dissent from its own workforce.
Second-order effects
- The political investment converts into commercial goodwill: Trump personally endorses Oracle's TikTok bid, handing the company an advantage rivals like Microsoft had to fight for without a White House patron.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — and the later $45M donation and the debt-funded Project Stargate/OpenAI alignment suggest it does — political access becomes a load-bearing part of Oracle's strategy, with CEO personal spending functioning as corporate business development.
The trend: Tech moguls' political giving is shifting from peripheral civic activity to a core instrument of corporate strategy, with Ellison's fundraiser as the early data point in Oracle's six-year alignment with Trump.