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For Larry Ellison, Buying Trump Is the Bargain of the Century

The billionaire has gotten media dominance and cozy government deals for what amounts to chicken feed.

Larry Ellison and Donald Trump at the White House on January 21, 2025.

For most people, $45 million is a staggering sum of wealth, enough to satisfy all their dreams of avarice and more. But for tech plutocrat Larry Ellison, $45 million is just a drop in a bucket. According to Bloomberg, Ellison is the sixth-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $202 billion. To put that in perspective, for someone with $200 billion, spending $45 million is the equivalent of a person with a net worth of $200,000 spending $45. In other words, it’s chicken feed rather than real money. And it was all Ellison needed to get in Donald Trump’s good graces.

Ellison and Trump clearly have established a cozy alliance of mutual back-scratching, facilitated by the fact that Ellison owns a lavish $173 million estate in Manalapan, Florida, a brisk 20-minute drive from the president’s favorite haunt, Mar-a-Lago. On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported on the “symbiotic relationship” between the billionaire and the president. According to the newspaper:

Ellison gave roughly $45 million to a political nonprofit group supporting Trump’s election efforts in 2024, according to people familiar with the fundraising. Such funding isn’t subject to disclosure rules and hasn’t been previously reported. More recently, Ellison has given millions of dollars more to groups that support Trump since the election, the people said, with some of the funds going to Trump’s legacy initiatives in Washington, D.C. Oracle is among the corporate sponsors listed by Freedom 250, a Trump-aligned group hosting celebrations for the country’s 250th birthday.

Ellison gave roughly $45 million to a political nonprofit group supporting Trump’s election efforts in 2024, according to people familiar with the fundraising. Such funding isn’t subject to disclosure rules and hasn’t been previously reported.

More recently, Ellison has given millions of dollars more to groups that support Trump since the election, the people said, with some of the funds going to Trump’s legacy initiatives in Washington, D.C. Oracle is among the corporate sponsors listed by Freedom 250, a Trump-aligned group hosting celebrations for the country’s 250th birthday.

Prior to the 2024 election, Ellison had an ambiguous relationship with Trump. He didn’t initially support the president in either of his election campaigns, preferring Marco Rubio in 2016 and Tim Scott in 2024 (he also unsuccessfully pushed for Scott to be Trump’s vice-presidential nominee). But Ellison did rally behind Trump when he was trying to steal the 2020 election, participating in November 2020 phone calls with senior supporters of the president to strategize about how to invalidate election results in Pennsylvania and Georgia. And he has made sure to keep the money pipeline flowing to Trump.

Ellison’s donations to the president are significant........

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