Larry Ellison, the founder of the high-tech company Oracle, has accompanied US President Donald Trump since he took office last month, an extensive investigation by the Intercept has revealed. The man Trump has referred to as “one of the hardest working guys in the world” was in the front row at the inauguration, and then watched the president sign an executive order on artificial intelligence, a “major business interest” of the tech giant.

Ellison, the Oracle co-founder, was sitting next to Rupert Murdoch, the Israeli billionaire, in early February when Trump created a fund to facilitate the purchase of TikTok. His presence was no coincidence.

Last month, after the Supreme Court upheld a law banning TikTok, Oracle emerged as a leader in the race to take control of the Chinese-owned short-video platform.

While anti-China hawks in Washington led the charge against TikTok, it was the anger of pro-Israel activists that likely explains why Oracle was the natural choice to take control of the social media app.

The campaign to ban the app began to gain momentum after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. According to experts, the push for the ban was not only about US national security, but also about Israel’s security. Politicians even linked their campaigns against TikTok to the alleged propaganda that the platform is a platform for Hamas.

Oracle, which already controls some of TikTok’s day-to-day operations, has taken a staunchly pro-Israel stance and, according to an investigation by The Intercept, has suppressed pro-Palestinian activism within the company.

Last November, Oracle CEO Safra Katz, an Israeli-American, told an Israeli business news outlet: “For employees, it’s clear: If you’re not with America or Israel, don’t work here — this is a free country.”

The company’s collaboration with Israeli government agencies has been extensive, spanning everything from direct technology work with the military to programs designed to help Israel with public relations — including, according to internal company messages, on social media platforms like TikTok.

It is worth noting that among Oracle’s 160,000 employees around the world, there are thousands who support the Palestinian cause and oppose the Israeli war of extermination, despite facing repression and punishment related to their positions. A group of Oracle employees told the American website that the opposition and reactions were part of an internal crisis among the pro-Palestinian employees at the giant technology company due to its unwavering support for Israel.

Oracle employees who spoke to the site described an environment of fear, and several said they were seeking to leave the company.

“The environment is horrible, people are terrified to even mention Palestine. I can’t take it anymore,” said one employee, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation.

Last year, 68 Oracle employees signed an open letter criticizing the company’s partnerships with Israel. Several also sounded the alarm about what they said were biases in some of the company’s programs, including the removal of avenues for employees to donate money to pro-Palestinian causes. According to several Oracle employees who spoke to the site on condition of anonymity to protect their livelihoods, one employee was fired for alleged trademark infringement after he created a Palestinian-Oracle logo on a watermelon — a symbol of Palestinian solidarity — that was posted to a Slack channel and shared on social media.

While companies like Google and Amazon have been criticized for working with the Israeli military and suppressing pro-Palestinian voices, employees and observers told the site that Oracle stands out for its steadfast commitment to Israel.

Relations with Israel

Oracle, a Texas-based giant that has emerged as a leader in database management software and services, has a close history with Israel — one of the company's many nation-state clients.

Both Katz and Ellison have close ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Katz met with Netanyahu a few months before the Gaza war began to discuss expanding Oracle’s operations in Israel. Ellison, a major Republican donor in the United States, once offered Netanyahu a spot on Oracle’s board of directors and invited him to his private island in Hawaii.

Oracle’s first high-profile deal with the Israeli government came in 2021, when it became the first multinational tech company to offer cloud services in Israel. The database giant built a $319 million data center in Jerusalem for the project.

Not all of Oracle’s work in Israel has been made public, however. Even as it announced the cloud computing deal, Oracle had been working on a top-secret, four-year project with the Israeli Air Force called Project Minta, according to screenshots of Slack posts obtained by the site.

Oracle and the War on Gaza

Immediately after the Al-Aqsa Intifada on October 7, 2023, Oracle publicly declared its support for Israel. Katz also demanded that the phrase “Oracle Stands with Israel” be displayed on all company screens, in more than 180 countries.

During the war, company officials continued to tout their support for Israel—and discuss emerging and ongoing projects with the Israeli government. At one point, in Slack, Shimon Levy (president of Oracle Israel) noted that the Israeli Ministry of Defense was “a demanding customer with very high standards.”

A month after the war, Levy praised Oracle employees who were leading “an important volunteer initiative to develop and operate a unique tool” for Israeli public relations on social media. The project, called “Words of Iron,” was developed in collaboration with Israeli ministries to help them elevate pro-Israel content and counter critical narratives on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter.

In February 2024, the Israeli Military Cyber Administration and Oracle teamed up for another hackathon “to find technical solutions for the rehabilitation of Israeli settlements near Gaza using Oracle technology,” according to internal Slack messages, integrating information provided by Oracle with Israeli software systems. Levy also announced that the company had donated bags of medical and environmental supplies to IDF soldiers, worth half a million dollars.

Last summer, Katz attended a private lobbying meeting with U.S. senators to advocate for continued arms shipments to Israel. And last fall, Oracle announced it was partnering with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, one of Israel’s largest defense companies, on an artificial intelligence project to provide “warfighters with rapid, actionable insights on the battlefield.”

“What really struck me was how obvious the complicity was,” Marwa Fatafta, Access Now’s Middle East and North Africa policy and advocacy director, told the site. “They are definitely exploiting the impunity that Israel has, and there are no consequences at all.”

By the time Katz returned to Israel in November 2024 on her second trip since the war broke out, some employees were feeling deeply uncomfortable in the workplace.

“Can any of the 155,000+ Oracle employees around the world who have a different opinion than Catz express their opinion without being penalized or even fired?” Hani Rasheed, Oracle UK’s director of enterprise architecture, posted on LinkedIn.

Cut off aid to the Palestinians

Meanwhile, as Israel began bombing and fully invading Gaza, some employees said the company was restricting support for the Palestinians.

Like many companies, Oracle runs a program to match employee donations to charitable causes. With the outbreak of war, relief organizations such as Medical Aid for Palestinians and UNRWA were removed from the internal donations page and are no longer listed as accepting matching donations, four employees told the site.

Oracle employees told the site that the company attributed the disappearance of the Palestinian-oriented charities to policy changes that focused on education, the environment and health — although Oracle employees noted that some of the charities in question focused on those areas. When they asked to reinstate the charities, they received no response.

It is noteworthy that in public statements to the Israeli media, Katz referred to pro-Palestinian human rights groups as “brainwashing organizations,” adding: “They don’t even know the facts.”

Activists disagree with Oracle's sweeping statements surrounding Israel's war on Gaza.

In the press, Oracle did not hesitate to take a clear position, rejecting the idea that its work with Israel amid the Gaza offensive could cause problems with customers in other parts of the world. “Absolutely not,” said Yael Har Even, executive vice president of Oracle Israel, when asked about the possibility. “Zero always says – the US first, then Israel, and then the whole world.”

At Access Now, the site said: “What really struck me was how obvious the complicity was. They are absolutely exploiting the impunity that Israel enjoys, and there are absolutely no consequences.”

By the time Katz returned to Israel in November 2024 on her second trip since the war broke out, some employees were feeling deeply uncomfortable in the workplace.

“Can any of the 155,000+ Oracle employees around the world who have a different opinion than Catz express their opinion without being penalized or even fired?” Hani Rasheed, Oracle UK’s director of enterprise architecture, posted on LinkedIn.

Cut off aid to the Palestinians

Meanwhile, as Israel began bombing and fully invading Gaza, some employees said the company was restricting support for the Palestinians.

Like many companies, Oracle runs a program to match employee donations to charitable causes. With the outbreak of war, relief organizations such as Medical Aid for Palestinians and UNRWA were removed from the internal donations page and are no longer listed as accepting matching donations, four employees told the site.

Oracle employees told the site that the company attributed the disappearance of the Palestinian-oriented charities to policy changes that focused on education, the environment and health — although Oracle employees noted that some of the charities in question focused on those areas. When they asked to reinstate the charities, they received no response.

It is noteworthy that in public statements to the Israeli media, Katz referred to pro-Palestinian human rights groups as “brainwashing organizations,” adding: “They don’t even know the facts.”

Activists disagree with Oracle's sweeping statements surrounding Israel's war on Gaza.

In the press, Oracle did not hesitate to take a clear position, rejecting the idea that its work with Israel amid the Gaza offensive could cause problems with customers in other parts of the world. “Absolutely not,” said Yael Har Even, executive vice president of Oracle Israel, when asked about the possibility. “Zero always says – the US first, then Israel, and then the whole world.”