Larry Ellison was among the participants on a call in November 2020, during which top Trump allies discussed ways to contest the election results, according to The Washington Post. It's unclear what role Ellison played on the call, but The Post found evidence of Ellison's apparent involvement in court records and confirmed with one of the call's other participants.
An Oracle spokesperson didn't immediately respond to Protocol's request for comment.
The records are part of an ongoing legal case involving True the Vote, a conservative group focused on stopping supposed voter fraud, and Fair Fight, a progressive voting rights group founded by Stacey Abrams. According to documents revealed in that case, True the Vote's founder Catherine Engelbrecht described the call in a note to a donor.
“Jim was on a call this evening with Jay Sekulow, Lindsey O. Graham, Sean Hannity and Larry Ellison,” Engelbrecht wrote, according to the Post. Jim, in this case, describes Jim Bopp, True the Vote's lawyer. “He explained the work we were doing and they asked for a preliminary report asap, to be used to rally their troops internally, so that’s what I’m working on now.”
The donor, Fred Eshelman, replied days later, according to the Post, curious about Ellison's involvement. “Why was he on call with Senator Graham? Is he part of data/analysis solution, is he a potential large donor, other?” Eshelman's message read.
Bopp confirmed his participation in the call, but told the Post he couldn't recall its participants and shared a different recollection about the substance of the call. “The question that I think was being discussed was whether or not congressional hearings on how the 2020 election was being conducted would be beneficial to whatever people were doing,” he told the Post.
Ellison's support for former President Trump is, by now, well known. He was among Trump's most prominent allies in the tech industry during his time in office and held a fundraiser for him during the 2020 election. Trump, likewise, praised Oracle and looped the software giant in on the much-anticipated, but ultimately scuttled, deal to acquire TikTok in September 2020. His administration also backed Oracle in its copyright fight with Google.
Ellison, who is now chair of Oracle's board, is also part of the group of financiers who recently joined Elon Musk in his bid to take Twitter private. Musk has said if the deal goes through (and that's still a big if) that he would reinstate Trump's account.
Climate TRACE's data show emissions at the facility-level.
Image: Climate TRACE