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Oracle 's creator contributed $250,000 to Graham PAC in the final days of the TikTok sale.
Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, contributed $250,000 to the super PAC endorsing Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) re-election bid as his organization closed on a prized spot as TikTok's US technology affiliate.
FEC records reveal that Ellison contributed $250,000 to the Defense Agency, Power PAC, on September 14. Protection is Strength PAC has purchased advertisements solely in favor of Graham's political aspirations, including his 2015 presidential campaign and his latest re-election challenge to the US Senate.
It's an exceptionally big contribution to Ellison, who also contributed $5,200 to Graham 's Majority Fund in January. The timing of the larger donation is also noteworthy, just hours after Oracle officially revealed that it had been selected as TikTok's technology partner for its US operations, defeating Microsoft in a high-profile bidding process to save the popular video app.
Oracle's agreement with TikTok was applauded by Secretary of State Steve Mnuchin, but attacked China's hawks on both sides, who saw it as failing to answer long-standing questions about the partnership between TikTok's parent company ByteDance and the Chinese government. Around the same time, the arrangement was a possible windfall for Oracle, who was set up to obtain a substantial contract from the bundled app.
Sen. Graham was reportedly central to the structure of the contract, but it is not known if he had any impact on the individual firms involved. In an interview with Vanity Fair in August, Graham said that he directly contacted Trump to say that he should find a US corporation to buy the platform to resolve the administration's questions regarding the app's relationship with China. Let Microsoft or anyone buy it, place it in American hands, and let the platform live and prosper because so many people love it, Sen. Graham said to Trump during the summer.
You should thank me if TikTok is rescued, he said.
Graham kept cheering on the offer as it progressed. On the day the deal was announced, the senator tweeted, Great decision of President Trump to authorize the selling of TikTok to Oracle and Walmart. Nice for American consumers who are shielded from the Communist Party of China, he added, Well done, Mr. President.
The deal failed in the days after the donation, struggling to close before the deadline set by the President. When the deadline came, the Commerce Department moved to block dealings with TikTok's parent corporation, only to be thwarted by a temporary injunction as part of the pending federal lawsuit against the order.
Graham is reportedly in a close fight for re-election to the U.S. Senate for South Carolina versus Democratic rival Jaime Harrison.
On Thursday, Politico reported that the three-term senator had a narrow lead against Harrison among the likely electorate, 46% to 40%. Still, in the third quarter of this year, Harrison raised $57 million, dwarfing Graham's $28 million.
We have no association with them by statute, T.W. Arrighi, spokeswoman for Graham 's campaign, said Saturday to The Verge. It's a totally different and autonomous operation.
