By Jan Wolfe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Larry Ellison, billionaire chairman and co-founder of Oracle Corp, participated shortly after the November 2020 U.S. presidential election in a phone call focused on strategies for contesting former President Donald Trump’s defeat, according to an email revealed in a court document.
The Nov. 14, 2020 phone call, first reported by the Washington Post, is the first known instance of a technology industry leader joining Trump allies to strategize about how to contest the election result.
The phone call was described in a Nov. 14, 2020, email sent by Catherine Engelbrecht, a conservative activist.
Engelbrecht’s email was revealed this week in a court filing submitted by Fair Fight Inc, an organization founded in 2018 by voting rights activist and Democratic Party politician Stacey Abrams.
Fair Fight filed a lawsuit in late 2020 challenging tactics used by True The Vote, Engelbrecht’s conservative vote-monitoring organization. That lawsuit is still pending.
According to Engelbrecht’s email, the phone call Ellison joined included Senator Lindsey Graham and longtime Trump legal adviser Jay Sekulow, among other Trump allies.
An Oracle spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ellison was among the few top technology executives to openly support Trump during the 2020 campaign. The Desert Sun reported that he hosted a fundraiser for the former president at his Rancho Mirage, California, estate.
Ellison recently committed $1 billion in financing to help his longtime friend Elon Musk buy Twitter Inc.. It is uncertain whether Musk will complete his $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform.
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; editing by Andy Sullivan and David Gregorio)
