Larry Ellison - Charitable Donations

Charitable Donations

In order to settle an insider trading lawsuit arising from Ellison's selling nearly $1 billion of Oracle stock, he was allowed to donate $100 million to his own charitable foundation without admitting wrongdoing. A California judge refused to allow Oracle to pay Ellison's legal fees of $24 million. Ellison's lawyer had argued that if Ellison were to pay those fees, that could be construed as an admission of guilt. Ellison's charitable donations to Stanford University raised questions about the independence of two Stanford professors who evaluated the case's merits for Oracle.

In response to the September 11th terrorist attacks, Ellison made a controversial offer to donate to the Federal government, software that would enable it to build and run a national identification database and issue ID cards.

The 2004 Forbes list of the charitable donations made by the wealthiest 400 Americans stated that Ellison had donated $151,092,103 in the preceding year, about 1% of his estimated personal wealth.

In June 2006, Ellison announced that he would not honor his earlier pledge of $115 million to Harvard University, claiming it was due to the departure of former President Lawrence Summers. Oracle spokesman Bob Wynne announced, ``It was really Larry Summers' brainchild and once it looked like Larry Summers was leaving, Larry Ellison reconsidered... It was Larry Ellison and Larry Summers that had initially come up with this notion."

In August 2010 it was reported that Ellison is one of the 40 billionaires who has signed "The Giving Pledge". Ellison wrote: "Many years ago, I put virtually all of my assets into a trust with the intent of giving away at least 95 percent of my wealth to charitable causes. I have already given hundreds of millions of dollars to medical research and education, and I will give billions more over time. Until now, I have done this giving quietly—because I have long believed that charitable giving is a personal and private matter."