On the back of a deal to support TikTok when it came under pressure from the Trump administration, Oracle founder and CTO, Larry Ellison, has now agreed to pump $1bn of his own cash into the funding pool to acquire Twitter.
The Oracle deal with TikTok never really got off the ground after the sanctions threatened by Trump were not executed by the Biden administration. However, almost 18 months after the foray into social media was first mooted the partnership looks to be gaining new traction as a deal for Oracle to host TikTok’s US data is set to be finalized soon. Whether that leads to a more significant investment or acquisition remains a possibility – although a distant one.
However, Ellison’s latest investment to support ‘close friend’ Elon Musk in his bid to acquire Twitter could have more teeth than the TikTok saga. Musk (the world’s richest person) is on the brink of taking over at Twitter but needs some extra cash to make the deal happen. He has pledged about $25bn of his own funds and is on a ‘raise’ with his chums and a few well known PE houses to find the balance. So far, Ellison is the biggest contributor to the fund – putting in more than Sequoia Capital and a host of other institutional investors.
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