Ellison’s $45 million buys influence with Trump

Ellison’s $45 – Tech billionaire Larry Ellison has donated about $45 million to a political nonprofit backing Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign and later gave additional millions to Trump-supporting groups. The money sits alongside Oracle’s growing government contracts, close acce

On a day when Donald Trump was holding court in the West Wing after his second inauguration. Larry Ellison was already close enough to be part of the machine—not just watching it. The setting was symbolic. Oracle had been selected as the “architectural backbone” for the administration’s $500 billion plan to build artificial-intelligence data centers in the U.S. The timing wasn’t the point. Access was.

For most people, $45 million would be a lifetime-changing number. For Ellison, it reads like spending pocket change. Bloomberg ranks him the sixth-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $202 billion. Against that backdrop. the article’s core claim lands like a provocation: Ellison’s $45 million wasn’t an expensive gamble—it was the price of entry.

The reporting centers on what Ellison’s giving appears to buy. In 2024, Ellison gave roughly $45 million to a political nonprofit group supporting Trump’s election efforts. The funding, the account says, is not subject to disclosure rules and “hasn’t been previously reported.”

The donations didn’t stop after Election Day. More recently, Ellison has given millions of dollars more to groups that support Trump since the election. The funds included money directed to Trump’s legacy initiatives in Washington, D.C. Oracle appears as a corporate sponsor listed by Freedom 250, a Trump-aligned group hosting celebrations for the country’s 250th birthday.

Ellison’s connection to Trump isn’t presented as purely financial. It’s also described as geographic and familiar—mutual comfort built on proximity. Ellison owns a $173 million estate in Manalapan, Florida, about a 20-minute drive from Trump’s preferred resort, Mar-a-Lago.

Before the 2024 election, though, the relationship wasn’t portrayed as automatic. Ellison, the account says, initially didn’t support Trump in either of his election campaigns. In 2016, Ellison preferred Marco Rubio, and for 2024 he preferred Tim Scott. Ellison also unsuccessfully pushed for Scott to be Trump’s vice-presidential nominee.

What changed. according to the same reporting. was how far Ellison was willing to go when Trump tried to contest the outcome of the 2020 election. In November 2020. Ellison participated in phone calls with senior supporters of the president to strategize about invalidating election results in Pennsylvania and Georgia. The point of that detail is blunt: it situates Ellison on the inside of efforts to overturn an election—not merely on the outside of conventional political giving.

The political access is paired with market leverage. The article reports that Trump’s investment accounts have twice traded stock this year from Ellison’s firm. Oracle. to the tune of $2 million. At the same time. Oracle’s contracts with the government “continue to balloon. ” setting up the central friction readers may feel in their gut: the claim that influence and procurement move together.

Ellison’s proximity is also tied to two signature moments of the Trump era: artificial intelligence infrastructure and a major reshaping of the tech and media landscape.

The day after Trump’s second inauguration. Ellison was in the West Wing when Oracle was selected as the architectural backbone for the administration’s $500 billion plan to build AI data centers in the U.S. Later in 2025, Oracle was part of an investor group that gained control of TikTok’s U.S. operations in a deal brokered by the U.S. government.

When it comes to media, the story describes momentum that goes beyond ownership. Under Trump, the Ellisons and their companies launched what the article calls the most significant media mergers in a generation. First, their firm Skydance merged with Paramount, which owns CBS. Then, the account says, the Ellisons muscled Netflix aside to seal a takeover of Warner Bros Discovery. After taking over Paramount. the article says. the Ellisons elevated Bari Weiss as an ideological commissar to make CBS friendlier to Donald Trump.

The reporting links those moves directly to the legal and policy environment—specifically the Justice Department. It alleges that the CBS changes were aimed at helping Trump and the Justice Department become more receptive to allowing Paramount Skydance to fuse with Warner Bros Discovery.

A more specific allegation follows, grounded in a claim about the merger’s backstory. When CBS was still fighting a lawsuit Trump launched against the network for a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. the article says David Ellison called Paramount executive Barbara Byrne with what he heard was a reasonable settlement figure. “Byrne told Ellison they shouldn’t be talking and informed Paramount’s counsel and the board.” The account adds that CBS ultimately did make a settlement. and that that settlement led to the merger being greenlit by the Department of Justice.

Then comes the part that turns the business story into a newsroom one. The article says the Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery deal would also put CNN under Ellison family control. It points to fears at CNN that the Ellisons will deploy Bari Weiss to compromise the newsroom.

The account draws on what it describes as Weiss’s CBS tenure: she had “virtually no broadcasting experience” before taking over in October. and she reshaped CBS News in “occasionally chaotic ways.” It says she fired leadership of the network’s flagship. “60 Minutes.” Several correspondents fired afterward accused her of editorial interference; the article notes she denied those accusations. It also says Anderson Cooper. a prominent CNN on-air personality. quit “60 Minutes” and is reportedly hostile to Weiss having a role at CNN.

Ellison family control over major outlets, the story argues, would compound a larger political imbalance. The claim is that economic inequality has given billionaires enormous power—power to “purchase the political system” and consolidate influence over the country’s wealth.

At the same time, the article insists that none of this is uncontested. Both the Ellison family and the Trump White House deny any improper action or collusion.

And regulation hasn’t been rubber-stamped. The article emphasizes that state attorneys general can bring antitrust law to bear. It describes Zephyr Teachout, a constitutional lawyer and Nation columnist, as mapping that approach. It then points to California Attorney General Rob Bonta. who said he was investigating and that the transaction has not cleared regulatory scrutiny. Bonta is quoted saying, “We are investigating. The transaction has not cleared regulatory scrutiny. There are red flags in the air everywhere.”.

That is where the story leaves readers: with a collision between the speed of deals and the slow grind of oversight. Ellison’s giving—about $45 million in 2024 to a nonprofit supporting Trump’s election efforts. followed by millions more—sits beside Oracle’s expanding government contracting and an account of trading $2 million in stock through Trump investment accounts. The media consolidation described here would place CNN under Ellison family control. in a shift that critics say could reshape what viewers hear and how it is framed.

Whether the money leads to anything improper is contested, and both sides deny it. But state regulators are signaling they see “red flags.” In the meantime. Ellison and Trump’s orbit—built on proximity. repeated access. and the kind of leverage money can buy—remains the question looming over the deals still in motion.

Larry Ellison Donald Trump Oracle political donations antitrust media mergers Paramount Warner Bros Discovery CBS CNN Bari Weiss Freedom 250 California Attorney General Rob Bonta