Trump: Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Fox CEO Murdoch Involved in TikTok Takeover Deal

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the matter,” reported that software giant Oracle is part of a consortium that’s on the verge of gaining a controlling stake (roughly 80%) in TikTok’s U.S. business.

President Donald Trump has now confirmed that Larry Ellison, Oracle’s co-founder, executive chair, CTO, and top shareholder, is among the small group of “very well known people” who are “involved” in the proposed takeover deal.

“Larry Ellison’s one of them,” Trump told Fox News’ Peter Doocy on Sunday. “He’s involved. He’s a great guy.”

The president said that Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell and Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch are “involved” as well, and that the latter’s father, Rupert Murdoch, is also “probably going to be in the group,” along with a “couple of others.”

“Really great people,” Trump added. “Very prominent people. And they’re also, uhh, American patriots, ya know?… I think they’re gonna do a really good job.”

Watch:

Here’s “great guy” and “American patriot” Larry Ellison — who has given tens of millions of dollars to the group “Friends of the IDF” — gushing about the Israeli military and his “deep emotional connection” to Israel, which he refers to as “our state”:

For much more on Oracle and Ellison — including their CIA ties — read journalist Sam Husseini’s recent piece about the planned TikTok deal.

Here’s a short video primer on the man whose influence Trump has said goes “well beyond technology… [he’s] sort of CEO of everything”:

Like Ellison, Michael Dell is also reportedly a “major funder” of “Friends of the IDF,” and said at a conference in Tel Aviv in 2016 that his company is “deeply committed to Israel.”

“By providing the technologies that power Israel’s racialized surveillance and killing machine from AI programs, Dell belongs right next to Google, Amazon, Intel and Microsoft as a corporate profiteer of occupation, apartheid and the first live-streamed genocide in history,” says The Electronic Intifada’s Omar Zahzah.

The Murdochs, for their part, have (per The Times of Israel) “long-standing relations with” Benjamin Netanyahu.

Lachlan Murdoch, “who took over his father’s media empire in September 2023,” flew to Israel in January of 2024 for a secretive meeting with the Israeli Prime minister (something he had done in 2016 as well, per Haaretz).

At a dinner in 2010, Rupert Murdoch — then 79 years old, now 94 — was presented with the ADL’s “International Leadership Award” for “his stalwart support of Israel.”

“Some believe that if America wants to gain credibility in the Muslim world and advance the cause of peace, Washington needs to put some distance between itself and Israel,” Murdoch reportedly said during his acceptance speech. “My view is the opposite.”