Over 1,000 Alleged Oracle Employees Have Signed a Petition Demanding Founder Larry Ellison Cancel a Trump Fundraiser
AND ABOUT AS LIKELY TO SUCCEED
Time•February 15, 2020
Over 1,000 Alleged Oracle Employees Have Signed a Petition Demanding Founder Larry Ellison Cancel a Trump Fundraiser
Oracle founder and CTO Larry Ellison‘s decision to throw a fundraiser for President Donald Trump has apparently angered some of his employees. So much so that they have allegedly set up a Change.org petition demanding he cancel the Feb. 19 event and have asked other Oracle employees to sign.
The petition, first reported by Vox, launched on Friday and so far has over 1,000 signatures from alleged employees. (The computer technology company employs around 136,000 people worldwide).
It asks company leadership to “[stand] up against Ellison’s damaging association with the Trump campaign” and says his support of Trump “does not affirm Oracle’s core values of diversity, inclusiveness and ethical business conduct.”
“As Oracle employees, we must hold our leaders accountable for upholding their ethical responsibilities,” the petition, which anyone can sign, continues. “Ellison’s financial support of Donald Trump endangers the well-being of women, immigrants, communities of color, the environment, LGBTQ and trans communities, disabled people and workers everywhere.”
Oracle did not immediately respond to TIME’s request for comment.
Ellison is worth over $69 billion and is the fifth richest person in the U.S. according to Forbes. The Desert Sun reports that at Ellison’s upcoming fundraiser, for $100,000, guests can join a golf outing and take a photograph with the President. For $250,000, guests can also reportedly join a round table discussion.
“It signals what I and many others have always feared,” an Oracle employee reportedly told Vox. “Culturally, 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.” Vox reports that five current and one former employee described “bubbling frustration at Oracle on Thursday.” Some employees started a Slack channel and added the link to the petition to their email signature, according to Vox.
The petition exhibits how the President has remained deeply unpopular in Silicon Valley, although he has continued to quietly fundraise from a select group of wealthy donors. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump held a fundraiser in Palo Alto back in September; tickets reportedly cost up to $100,000 per couple and was held at a hidden location. Oracle CEO Safra Catz also served on Trump’s transition team, a decision that led Oracle senior executive George Polisner to resign in 2016.
Furious Oracle employees are demanding that Larry Ellison cancel his Trump fundraiser
Oracle employees say they “refuse to be complacent and complicit in Larry Ellison’s support of such a divisive person.”
By Theodore Schleifer@teddyschleifer Updated Feb 14, 2020
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Oracle founder Larry Ellison delivering a keynote speech on September 16, 2019 in San Francisco, California. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison’s decision to host a fundraiser for Donald Trump next week has awoken the usually passive workforce at his company, angering some employees who are going public with their disgust over Ellison’s actions.
Their reaction reflects how toxic Trump remains in Silicon Valley — and the ire that top tech executives can draw when they align themselves with the president. And it’s revealing that it’s happening at Oracle, which employees say has a conservative culture that has not been touched by the current bouts of workforce activism sweeping major tech companies.
“It signals what I and many others have always feared,” one current Oracle employee told Recode. “Culturally, 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.”
Recode spoke with one former and five current employees who, in sum, described bubbling frustration at Oracle on Thursday. They said they were privately complaining to colleagues in their offices and sharing links about the fundraiser to friends on Facebook Messenger. But while many say that their coworkers, too, are upset, assessing the full scale of their anger is difficult because of Oracle’s culture: It discourages employees from talking about politics. That’s also why it is unclear how substantial the plans to protest Ellison will become.
Still, as of Friday afternoon, at least 230 people in the company feel strongly enough that they signed a petition addressed to Ellison that began circulating that morning. The Oracle employees are calling on him to cancel the fundraising event; they’ve also started a Slack channel, are adding the link to the petition in their email signatures; and are publicizing it in internal Oracle forums, trying to drum up pressure in a company not known for activism.
“Larry Ellison’s personal implicit endorsement and financial support of Donald Trump not only damages our brand perception and misrepresents the diverse views of our company, but it adversely affects the morale of the individuals and communities who comprise Oracle,” said the group behind the petition, called Oracle Employees for Ethics. “We are signing this petition because we want our voices heard and we refuse to be complacent and complicit in Larry Ellison’s support of such a divisive person.”
Oracle declined to comment for this story.
Ellison, the fifth-richest person in the US, surprised the tech industry on Wednesday when news broke that he would host Trump for a golf-filled fundraiser at his estate in California’s Coachella Valley next week. The event is, by far, the most significant public display of support for Trump 2020 by a tech titan.
Or as another Oracle employee, granted anonymity like others because they were candidly discussing their boss, told Recode: “Oracle is not supposed to be political but yet our CEO is doing something very political, no?”
“This fundraiser is a slap in the face to all of us, especially as Larry champions the environment and is building a hospital,” this employee said, referring to Ellison’s personal philanthropy. “This shows that he cares about money over all else. And that is what matters. But what is the average employee to do?”
Friday’s petition is a small but bold step for employees at Oracle. Companies like Google are famous for fostering an open culture that leaves room for rabble-rousers and vigorous political debate during the workday. Other tech giants have proven much more outspoken about Trump policies like the ban on immigrants from Muslim countries and the debate over letting DREAMers stay in the United States.
But Oracle, from C-suite on down, is basically the anti-Google, some current and former employees say. Politics rarely comes up in the office. And there is very limited cross-team communication on internal forums about political matters; plus, employees are concerned that any posts critical of management would be monitored.
Compared to other tech companies, employees at the business-to-business software company say their colleagues skew older and more conservative (although Oracle’s workforce relies heavily on immigrants who have come to the US on H-1B visas, a program that Trump has cracked down on.)
That explains why despite some employees’ frustrations with Ellison, they have been slow to mobilize en masse.
Plus, some employees say they feel resigned because they believe that Ellison will do whatever he likes — regardless of his employees’ frustrations.
“Everyone I spoke to had the general attitude of, ‘It sucks but we can’t tell Larry anything,’” said one former employee, who recounted his conversation with five of his colleagues on Thursday.
“There’s a thoroughly defeatist culture within Oracle,” one current employee said. “Won’t be any institutional challenge internally.”
It is not as though Ellison’s support for Republicans is a total shock. Oracle has been one of the Silicon Valley giants that has worked hardest to cultivate ties to the Trump administration. Other tech giants have tried to keep at least some distance from the administration, but Oracle CEO Safra Catz has reportedly been under consideration to take senior roles within the White House, and she has hired several former senior Trump aides at Oracle.
Oracle’s ties to the administration led one executive in 2016 to resign from the company and blast it on the way out — but he was an exception to the rule.
And not all of Oracle’s workforce is upset over Ellison’s plans to fundraise for Trump. One current employee told Recode that he was proud of Ellison’s decision.
“I personally love that Ellison is willing to stand up for what he believes in even though it goes against the grain of what most people in the field and employees at his company believe politically,” this employee said.
But one of the ironies of Ellison’s public display of support for Trump is that he is not a dyed-in-the-wool Trump backer. Ellison was particularly close to Bill Clinton, once attending a ritzy dinner fundraiser in Silicon Valley for the Clinton campaign’s reelection race for about a dozen of Clinton’s top California donors. He once joked that the Constitution should have been amended to give Clinton a third term.
He was backing Democrats like Harry Reid as recently as 2013. In 2015, he hosted Barack Obama at the same golf course that Donald Trump will visit next week. Ellison didn’t even donate to Trump in 2016. (He was a major donor to a Super PAC backing Sen. Marco Rubio in the Republican presidential primary.)
That’s what makes Ellison’s decision perplexing to at least one person who was once close to him.
“He is a huge, huge liberal Democrat,” said this person. They described Ellison, a registered Democrat, as having been “so proud of the fact that he was one of the few [Fortune 100] CEOs who didn’t put greed before everything.”
“Larry looked down on Republicans of all stripes — especially the conservative evangelical ones,” the person said. “This Trump stuff makes no sense.”
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.
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison’s decision to host a fundraiser for Donald Trump next week has awoken the usually passive workforce at his company, angering some employees who are going public with their disgust over Ellison’s actions.
Their reaction reflects how toxic Trump remains in Silicon Valley — and the ire that top tech executives can draw when they align themselves with the president. And it’s revealing that it’s happening at Oracle, which employees say has a conservative culture that has not been touched by the current bouts of workforce activism sweeping major tech companies.
“It signals what I and many others have always feared,” one current Oracle employee told Recode. “Culturally, 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.”
Recode spoke with one former and five current employees who, in sum, described bubbling frustration at Oracle on Thursday. They said they were privately complaining to colleagues in their offices and sharing links about the fundraiser to friends on Facebook Messenger. But while many say that their coworkers, too, are upset, assessing the full scale of their anger is difficult because of Oracle’s culture: It discourages employees from talking about politics. That’s also why it is unclear how substantial the plans to protest Ellison will become.
Still, as of Friday afternoon, at least 230 people in the company feel strongly enough that they signed a petition addressed to Ellison that began circulating that morning. The Oracle employees are calling on him to cancel the fundraising event; they’ve also started a Slack channel, are adding the link to the petition in their email signatures; and are publicizing it in internal Oracle forums, trying to drum up pressure in a company not known for activism.
“Larry Ellison’s personal implicit endorsement and financial support of Donald Trump not only damages our brand perception and misrepresents the diverse views of our company, but it adversely affects the morale of the individuals and communities who comprise Oracle,” said the group behind the petition, called Oracle Employees for Ethics. “We are signing this petition because we want our voices heard and we refuse to be complacent and complicit in Larry Ellison’s support of such a divisive person.”
Oracle declined to comment for this story.
Ellison, the fifth-richest person in the US, surprised the tech industry on Wednesday when news broke that he would host Trump for a golf-filled fundraiser at his estate in California’s Coachella Valley next week. The event is, by far, the most significant public display of support for Trump 2020 by a tech titan.
Or as another Oracle employee, granted anonymity like others because they were candidly discussing their boss, told Recode: “Oracle is not supposed to be political but yet our CEO is doing something very political, no?”
“This fundraiser is a slap in the face to all of us, especially as Larry champions the environment and is building a hospital,” this employee said, referring to Ellison’s personal philanthropy. “This shows that he cares about money over all else. And that is what matters. But what is the average employee to do?”
Friday’s petition is a small but bold step for employees at Oracle. Companies like Google are famous for fostering an open culture that leaves room for rabble-rousers and vigorous political debate during the workday. Other tech giants have proven much more outspoken about Trump policies like the ban on immigrants from Muslim countries and the debate over letting DREAMers stay in the United States.
But Oracle, from C-suite on down, is basically the anti-Google, some current and former employees say. Politics rarely comes up in the office. And there is very limited cross-team communication on internal forums about political matters; plus, employees are concerned that any posts critical of management would be monitored.
Compared to other tech companies, employees at the business-to-business software company say their colleagues skew older and more conservative (although Oracle’s workforce relies heavily on immigrants who have come to the US on H-1B visas, a program that Trump has cracked down on.)
That explains why despite some employees’ frustrations with Ellison, they have been slow to mobilize en masse.
Plus, some employees say they feel resigned because they believe that Ellison will do whatever he likes — regardless of his employees’ frustrations.
“Everyone I spoke to had the general attitude of, ‘It sucks but we can’t tell Larry anything,’” said one former employee, who recounted his conversation with five of his colleagues on Thursday.
“There’s a thoroughly defeatist culture within Oracle,” one current employee said. “Won’t be any institutional challenge internally.”
It is not as though Ellison’s support for Republicans is a total shock. Oracle has been one of the Silicon Valley giants that has worked hardest to cultivate ties to the Trump administration. Other tech giants have tried to keep at least some distance from the administration, but Oracle CEO Safra Catz has reportedly been under consideration to take senior roles within the White House, and she has hired several former senior Trump aides at Oracle.
Oracle’s ties to the administration led one executive in 2016 to resign from the company and blast it on the way out — but he was an exception to the rule.
And not all of Oracle’s workforce is upset over Ellison’s plans to fundraise for Trump. One current employee told Recode that he was proud of Ellison’s decision.
“I personally love that Ellison is willing to stand up for what he believes in even though it goes against the grain of what most people in the field and employees at his company believe politically,” this employee said.
But one of the ironies of Ellison’s public display of support for Trump is that he is not a dyed-in-the-wool Trump backer. Ellison was particularly close to Bill Clinton, once attending a ritzy dinner fundraiser in Silicon Valley for the Clinton campaign’s reelection race for about a dozen of Clinton’s top California donors. He once joked that the Constitution should have been amended to give Clinton a third term.
He was backing Democrats like Harry Reid as recently as 2013. In 2015, he hosted Barack Obama at the same golf course that Donald Trump will visit next week. Ellison didn’t even donate to Trump in 2016. (He was a major donor to a Super PAC backing Sen. Marco Rubio in the Republican presidential primary.)
That’s what makes Ellison’s decision perplexing to at least one person who was once close to him.
“He is a huge, huge liberal Democrat,” said this person. They described Ellison, a registered Democrat, as having been “so proud of the fact that he was one of the few [Fortune 100] CEOs who didn’t put greed before everything.”
“Larry looked down on Republicans of all stripes — especially the conservative evangelical ones,” the person said. “This Trump stuff makes no sense.”
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.
By Theodore Schleifer@teddyschleifer Updated Feb 12, 2020
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66304976/1183284110.jpg.0.jpg)
Larry Ellison risks blowback from his employees at Oracle.
Phillip Faraone/Getty Images
Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle and one of the world’s richest men, is throwing a fundraiser for Donald Trump — the most significant display of support from a major tech titan for the president, by far.
Ellison is hosting Trump at his estate in California’s Coachella Valley next week for a “Golf Outing and Reception,” according to a copy of the invitation obtained by the Desert Sun, a local newspaper. Tickets run as high as a quarter million dollars.
While Ellison has consistently backed Republicans in the past — he was a major donor to a super PAC backing Marco Rubio in 2016 — the fundraiser is sure to expose the flamboyant 75-year-old billionaire to a new wave of political and corporate scrutiny. Silicon Valley workforces are, in general, deeply oppositional to the Trump administration, and it will be revealing to see whether Ellison encounters any pushback or activism from Oracle’s 136,000 employees, who have already expressed frustration with Oracle ties to the current administration.
Oracle has not been known to have a particularly restless workforce, but tech workers are organizing in the age of Trump and have sought to minimize ties between their employers and the Trump administration. Companies like Google and Github have encountered employees who want the corporations to end their work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for instance.
Ellison, though, has long been one of Silicon Valley’s most eccentric and independent-minded leaders, so he might care little about the blowback. He is no longer Oracle’s CEO but its chief technology officer and executive chairman.
Recode asked Ellison’s team last September about whether he planned to back the president for reelection, but his spokespeople declined to comment. Ellison’s personal and Oracle spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
The event will be held at Ellison’s private estate in Rancho Mirage next Wednesday, according to a copy of the invitation, on a golf course where he once played with Barack Obama. Ellison — far more comfortable with displays of opulence than many other tech billionaires — is a prodigious acquirer of property in Southern California.
What he has not been, up until now, is a major Trump donor. The most significant tech billionaire to back Trump to date has been early Facebook investor and board member Peter Thiel. Ellison has not made a political contribution of any type since the end of 2017, and he has never before donated to Trump or any Trump-backed group, according to federal records.
That makes this decision to host a major, high-profile event for Trump all the more unusual. But it’s also a major coup for the Trump team: Ellison is, after all, the country’s fifth-richest person, with a net worth of almost $70 billion.
Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle and one of the world’s richest men, is throwing a fundraiser for Donald Trump — the most significant display of support from a major tech titan for the president, by far.
Ellison is hosting Trump at his estate in California’s Coachella Valley next week for a “Golf Outing and Reception,” according to a copy of the invitation obtained by the Desert Sun, a local newspaper. Tickets run as high as a quarter million dollars.
While Ellison has consistently backed Republicans in the past — he was a major donor to a super PAC backing Marco Rubio in 2016 — the fundraiser is sure to expose the flamboyant 75-year-old billionaire to a new wave of political and corporate scrutiny. Silicon Valley workforces are, in general, deeply oppositional to the Trump administration, and it will be revealing to see whether Ellison encounters any pushback or activism from Oracle’s 136,000 employees, who have already expressed frustration with Oracle ties to the current administration.
Oracle has not been known to have a particularly restless workforce, but tech workers are organizing in the age of Trump and have sought to minimize ties between their employers and the Trump administration. Companies like Google and Github have encountered employees who want the corporations to end their work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for instance.
Ellison, though, has long been one of Silicon Valley’s most eccentric and independent-minded leaders, so he might care little about the blowback. He is no longer Oracle’s CEO but its chief technology officer and executive chairman.
Recode asked Ellison’s team last September about whether he planned to back the president for reelection, but his spokespeople declined to comment. Ellison’s personal and Oracle spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
The event will be held at Ellison’s private estate in Rancho Mirage next Wednesday, according to a copy of the invitation, on a golf course where he once played with Barack Obama. Ellison — far more comfortable with displays of opulence than many other tech billionaires — is a prodigious acquirer of property in Southern California.
What he has not been, up until now, is a major Trump donor. The most significant tech billionaire to back Trump to date has been early Facebook investor and board member Peter Thiel. Ellison has not made a political contribution of any type since the end of 2017, and he has never before donated to Trump or any Trump-backed group, according to federal records.
That makes this decision to host a major, high-profile event for Trump all the more unusual. But it’s also a major coup for the Trump team: Ellison is, after all, the country’s fifth-richest person, with a net worth of almost $70 billion.
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