Larry Ellison Donated $250,000 to Sen. Lindsey Graham PAC the Same Day as Oracle-TikTok Deal Announced

Oracle founder Larry Ellison donated $250,000 to a political action committee supporting Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) the same day his company was declared the first official U.S. partner for the short-form video app TikTok, currently owned by Bytedance in Beijing. Federal Elections Commission documents first reported by The Verge show that Ellison gave the money to the Security is Strength PAC, which buys pro-Graham ads, on September 14, hours after Oracle beat Microsoft to a deal with the Chinese company. Graham has said he personally called President Donald Trump to advocate for the sale of TikTok to a U.S. business in lieu of a total ban. “If TikTok is saved, you can thank me,” he said. And he later tweeted, “Great decision by President Trump to approve the sale of TikTok to Oracle and Walmart.” In a statement to The Verge, Graham’s campaign said, “By law, we have no affiliation with [Security is Strength].”