He may be 81-years old, but Oracle chairman and mega-billionaire Larry Ellison, a database technology pioneer and a mainstay of Silicon Valley for five decades, is at the peak of his influence, wealth and political power.
He is leading a group of investors who will buy and oversee the bulk of TikTok’s US assets, affirmed by an executive order President Donald Trump signed on Thursday. He is backing his son David’s massive ambitions to become one of the country’s top media moguls. And earlier this month, Ellison briefly became the richest person in the world, eclipsing Elon Musk, as Oracle’s stock exploded on its prognostications for its booming AI business.
Ellison is cementing his place as one of the most powerful business figures in the world. A big part of that evolution has come as a result of his relationship with Trump.
Like many in Silicon Valley, Ellison’s political positions have evolved – from Bill Clinton loving Democrat, to a quiet Republican donor, to standing alongside Trump at the White House.
“The most interesting thing is how Larry Ellison went from being a very quiet, behind the scenes donor of super PACs to a much more vocal and active player in the conservative movement,” Terry Sullivan, who ran Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign which Ellison supported, told CNN.
Evolution to Trump
Until recently, Ellison was not seen as an overtly political billionaire – he has donated to both Democrats and Republicans. But that changed in recent years. (Ellison declined to comment via an Oracle spokesperson).
In the past Ellison has expressed great admiration for Clinton, telling Playboy in 2002 that Clinton is “an extraordinary human being.” In 2000 he reportedly joked about amending the constitution “to elect Bill Clinton to a third term”.
Though Ellison was not known to financially support Barack Obama, he did meet with the former President during his term and Obama golfed several times on courses owned by Ellison. But it was during Obama’s presidency that it seems Ellison began shifting rightward, several outlets have reported previously.
Ellison gave tens of millions of dollars to support now Secretary of State Rubio’s 2016 run for president. Sullivan, Rubio’s campaign manager, described Ellison as “very low maintenance compared to a lot of the other billionaire donors,” who would not request “a bunch of meetings.”
“I wouldn’t say that I’m surprised he’s more out front now but it is a definite change,” Sullivan added.
After Rubio dropped out, Ellison did not endorse or donate to either Trump or Hillary Clinton.
In a 2018 interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo, Ellison said he considered his politics part of “the dispassionate middle. The kind of boring, dispassionate middle” citing others he believes to be centrists such as Clinton, Rubio, Sen. Mitt Romney and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
In 2020, Ellison hosted a fundraiser for Trump’s first reelection campaign at one of his properties, although he was careful to tell a Forbes reporter at the time he did not attend himself. He also joined a White House advisory group working to revive America’s economy during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I don’t think [Trump’s] the devil—I support him and want him to do well,” Ellison told Forbes that year.
By September of 2020, Oracle became TikTok’s business partner in the United States as it sought to satisfy the Trump administration’s national security concerns about TikTok. Trump had also supported Oracle’s attempt to buy TikTok’s American operations, along with Walmart – a deal that ultimately fell through.
“I think Oracle is a great company and I think its owner is a tremendous guy, a tremendous person,” Trump said at the time.
After the 2020 election, Ellison reportedly participated in a call that included Sen. Lindsey Graham and Fox News host Sean Hannity about contesting the results and Trump’s loss, though his son David later told journalist Kara Swisher in 2022 when asked about the call that “everybody in my family believes it was a free and fair election and accepts the results of the election.”
Despite his seeming friendliness with Trump, it was South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott who attracted Ellison’s support during the Republican primaries for the 2024 election, pouring tens of millions of dollars into Scott’s super PAC in 2022 and attending Scott’s campaign kickoff. But Ellison never followed through with more donations after Scott formally entered the race and failed to gain momentum, according to the New York Times. He did however, reportedly lobby Trump to choose Scott as his vice-presidential running mate.
Scott did not respond to requests for comment.
It was also around this time when Ellison threw his support – and $1 billion – behind his good friend Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter, which Musk said he was motivated to do on free speech grounds. Less than a month after the deal closed, Musk lifted the ban on Trump’s account enacted by Twitter following the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Ellison did not publicly endorse or donate to Trump during the 2024 election. But one day after Trump’s second inauguration, Ellison appeared alongside the President at the White House with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son to announce a new joint venture called Stargate meant to grow artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States.
The prescient AI investment marked a significant growth opportunity for Oracle, a Silicon Valley titan that had become relatively boring as a cloud and database middleware provider.
“In the case of Larry, it’s well beyond technology, he’s sort of CEO of everything,” Trump said at the announcement.
Since then, Ellison has been a regular visitor to the White House, according to Puck.
“Larry Ellison is one of them. He’s involved. He’s a great guy,” Trump said this month when speaking about the TikTok deal.
The prodigal son
While the TikTok deal was being worked through, Ellison was backing another major media venture – his son David Ellisons company Skydance acquiring the storied studio and media company Paramount.
Skydance – the younger Ellison’s production company founded in 2010 – first made a bid for Paramount in January 2024. The deal was expected to get regulatory approval in the first few months of 2025. But it turned into a lengthy merger review process pockmarked by allegations of political interference, stemming from Trump’s scathing criticism of Paramount’s CBS News division including a lawsuit over an interview CBS aired with then Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election. In July, Paramount settled that suit with Trump for $16 million – without any sort of apology. At the time, Paramount said the lawsuit was completely separate from the Skydance transaction and regulatory approval process.
But a few weeks later, Skydance took another step that would help smooth the path toward approval: Writing to the Federal Communications Committee that once it merged with Paramount it would undertake a “comprehensive review of CBS,” including installing an ombudsman to evaluate complaints of “bias or other concerns” at the news network and eliminate the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
Two days after those letters were sent, the FCC voted to approve the merger.
Speculation abounded over David Ellison’s politics, and whether they had shifted to help smooth the deal –last year he had poured money into helping Democrats. In April and June of 2025, the younger Ellison was spotted sitting ringside with Trump at UFC fights. (Shortly after the Skydance merger closed Paramount announced it had acquired the exclusive media rights for UFC).
The sight of David Ellison alongside Trump may have surprised some, considering his recent history as a big Democratic donor, who in 2022 told Swisher “I am a socially liberal person myself”.
In the first few months of 2024, the younger Ellison gave more than $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee and tens of thousands to state level Democratic parties, according to federal records. His biggest donation though came in April of 2024, when he donated $929,600 to former President Joe Biden’s reelection effort, according to CNBC.
By purchasing Paramount, David Ellison instantly became one of the most important leaders in Hollywood, the news media and television. And he could gain significantly more influence soon: Ellison’s company is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire The Free Press, a conservative leaning publication, and could potentially be preparing a bid for Warner Bros.
Discovery, CNN’s parent company.
Shortly before the Skydance-Paramount merger was officially approved, Trump claimed Skydance would give him an additional $20 million worth of “advertising, PSAs or similar programming.” When pressed by reporters, Ellison has declined to comment on Trump’s claim. A source close to David Ellison pushed back on any suggestions of a political evolution tied to business interest.
“There are a lot of assumptions being made about David – primarily a storyline that he has motivations through his interconnected businesses that will be somehow used to influence a political agenda. That is just a conspiracy theory,” the source said.
The younger Ellison himself has tried to move past the politics, telling reporters during media availabilities after the Skydance/Paramount merger he has “no interest” moving into the political spectrum.
“I’m excited to put my head down and do the work and build this business with this remarkable team up here, not sit up there and talk about, basically, how certain things are politicized,” he said.
And like the political outlook his father once espoused, the younger Ellison told reporters he wants his news outlet to cater to the center.
“We want to be in the truth business. We want to be in the facts business. We really want to look at the 70% of the country that kind of would define themselves as center left to center right and really ensure that it’s a place that can be true to the legacy that we’re inheriting, and we’re going to invest behind that.”
CNN’s Brian Stelter contributed to this report.