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Welcome back to The Stratosphere.
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And thanks as always for supporting our work here at Puck. In today’s dispatch from Silicon Valley, the unlikely political bildungsroman of Larry Ellison, who’s evolved from an ardent Clintonite to the single biggest supporter of Republican Tim Scott and Elon’s conservative-friendly bid to take over Twitter.
As a reminder, a friend or a colleague can sign up for this reporting in their inbox by entering their email here.
But first, some Tuesday intel:
- Democratic mega-donor and crypto wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried will publicly testify in Washington on Thursday, but I’m more interested in what S.B.F. is doing privately. One thing I’ve told people who have asked about Sam—and there have been plenty of inquiries—is that it’s a mistake to pigeonhole him as a traditional Democrat. He is just a strategist with pet issues. Case in point: I have learned that on Thursday evening, S.B.F. is headlining a dinner with the Problem Solvers Caucus, an influential bipartisan group of about 60 congressmen split between the two parties, co-led by influential Democratic moderate Josh Gottenheimer and Republican moderate Brian Fitzpatrick. There’s no stated agenda for the get-together, but S.B.F. told me that he’s happy to talk about either crypto regulation or pandemic preparedness, his personal lobbying agenda items. And get this—most times in life, you pay to attend a dinner. This time, you get paid; the expectation, I hear, is that S.B.F. will be maxing-out after the event to all Members who attend the confab.
- Yes, the victory of J.D. Vance last week in Ohio is a good omen for the world of Peter Thiel and Blake Masters. There had already been vibes that Masters, the other Thiel disciple running for the U.S. Senate, would win the endorsement of Donald Trump in Arizona. Trusting Thiel’s advice and others’ advice has now paid off for Trump once. The Vance win also makes it more likely that Thiel will keep playing mega-donor politics beyond 2022. I described Vance as Thiel’s “Gateway Drug” for a reason. Who doesn’t like to win?
P.S. As a reminder, you're receiving the free version of The Stratosphere at {{customer.email}}. For full access to Puck, and to each of my colleagues, click to subscribe here.
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| After Elon: Inside Larry Ellison’s New G.O.P. |
| In his twilight years, the yacht-racing, barrel-chested, private-island-dwelling former Democrat is helping to liberate Twitter from the left and placing a massive bet on what could be an unlikely Republican 2024 contender. |
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When G.O.P. donors received a message, in early 2020, that Republican officials “along with Larry Ellison cordially invite you to a golf outing and reception with Donald J. Trump,” at “the private estate of Larry Ellison,” it wouldn’t have required a Talmudic analysis to assume that Ellison, himself, would be on the premises. The fundraiser, after all, appeared to be a sort of MAGA coming out party for Ellison, an increasingly partisan Republican who had never before donated to Trump. But Ellison never showed up. Those who traveled to Rancho Mirage that winter, in what turned out to be a final pre-pandemic hurrah, were surprised to learn that the Silicon Valley centibillionaire had decided to snub his own event.
It was a fitting metaphor for Ellison’s years-long hot-and-cold relationship with the Republican Party: steamy enough to host Trump, and then frosty enough to not actually attend. These days, Ellison’s commitments to G.O.P. causes are trending red hot. Last week, he was revealed as the single biggest outside backer of Elon Musk’s officially apolitical, but pointedly conservative-friendly, takeover of Twitter. Ellison, once a registered Democrat, has also donated a staggering $25 million to Republican senator and potential presidential hopeful Tim Scott, placing him alongside Peter Thiel in the upper echelon of conservative Silicon Valley mega-donors. Talking with Republican officials and other people close to Ellison, it seems likely that the effort to secure his patronage could become one of the more important dramas of the 2024 fundraising trail.
Ellison founded Oracle almost five decades ago, beginning a legendarily bitter rivalry with Bill Gates, but his visibility in the broader culture mostly owed to his extravagant purchases, such as his Woodside mansion modeled after a 16th century Japanese tea garden, or when he bought almost the entire island of Lanai—an 87,000 acre tract of prime Hawaiian real estate where he lives like a feudal lord. (Most recently, Ellison was depicted in a brief but memorable scene in Hulu’s The Dropout, standing at the bow of one of his many yachts, shouting at a young Elizabeth Holmes, “Get the fucking money!”) Now it is Ellison’s growing, and largely underreported, power in campaigns that may define his twilight years...
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