Does Larry Ellison Support Israel?

Noa Cohen Feb 26, 2025 4 min read

Short answer: As of July 2026, yes. Larry Ellison, Oracle's co-founder and executive chairman, is one of the most significant individual American donors to Israel-linked causes and is widely described, by pro-Israel outlets and critical press alike, as a committed, materially engaged supporter of Israel. He has given over $25 million to Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) since 2014, including a record $16.6 million single gift in 2017, donated to fortify a rocket-hit Sderot community center back in 2007, and maintains a reported close personal friendship with Benjamin Netanyahu. There is no record of him boycotting or opposing Israel; the record runs entirely the other direction.

What Larry Ellison has actually said and done

2007: On his first visit to Israel, Ellison donated $500,000 to help fortify a community center in Sderot, a town that has been repeatedly hit by rocket fire from Gaza, according to The Jewish Chronicle.
November 7, 2014: Ellison donated $10 million to support Israeli soldiers, an early major gift that predates his record 2017 donation, per an investigative review of billionaire funding of FIDF published by Truthout.
November 5, 2017: At a Friends of the Israel Defense Forces gala in Beverly Hills, Ellison gave $16.6 million, the largest single gift in FIDF history at the time, toward well-being facilities on a new IDF training campus. "There is no greater honor than supporting some of the bravest people in the world," he told the crowd. The gala raised a record $53.8 million overall, as reported by The Times of Israel and corroborated by Wikipedia's FIDF entry.
2012 to present: Ellison is described as a close personal friend of Benjamin Netanyahu, reportedly hosting Netanyahu's family on his private Hawaiian island of Lanai. Both The Jerusalem Post and JTA independently describe the relationship as close.
2021 and ongoing: Beyond personal giving, Oracle expanded its Israel business footprint, including launching cloud and data-center operations in Jerusalem. Oracle has operated in Israel since 1996 and employs several hundred people there, according to The Jerusalem Post.
October 30, 2025: The U.S. Treasury announced Beijing's approval of a deal giving an Oracle-led investor consortium control of TikTok's U.S. operations. Jewish communal leaders, including JFNA CEO Eric Fingerhut, called Ellison's involvement "hopeful" for tougher moderation of antisemitic content, citing his long record as "such a strong supporter of our community," per JTA.

A Jewish upbringing, an unreligious man, and a lasting connection to Israel

Larry Ellison was born in 1944 to a young, unmarried Jewish mother in New York and was raised from infancy by his aunt and uncle in a Reform Jewish household in Chicago. He has said he is not religious and does not subscribe to Jewish theological "dogmas," but his Jewish heritage and cultural identification with Israel show up repeatedly in coverage of him, down to lighter anecdotes like renaming a superyacht after realizing its name spelled backward read "I'm a Nazi," as JTA reported in January 2026.

On substance, the record is consistent across very different outlets. Mainstream and Jewish press, including The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post, JTA, and The Jewish Chronicle, and even critical or adversarial outlets like Truthout, The Intercept, and 972mag, agree on the core facts: Ellison has personally donated well over $25 million to FIDF since 2014, made an early fortification donation to rocket-battered Sderot in 2007, and is one of the largest individual American donors tied to Israeli causes. He has attributed his affinity for Israel to its record of tech innovation and resilience rather than religious observance. He is also widely reported to be personally close to Benjamin Netanyahu.

Critical outlets frame the same facts negatively, arguing his wealth and now his stake in TikTok give him outsized pro-Israel influence over American media and politics, especially during the Gaza war. That framing is a matter of political interpretation, not a dispute over the underlying facts of his donations or his friendship with Netanyahu, which are independently corroborated by mainstream reporting.

The bottom line

Larry Ellison supports Israel clearly, materially, and consistently: tens of millions of dollars in personal donations to the IDF-support charity FIDF since at least 2014 (including a record-setting $16.6 million single gift in 2017), an earlier 2007 gift to fortify Sderot against rocket attacks, a reported close personal friendship with Benjamin Netanyahu, and a growing Oracle business presence in Israel. No credible source, pro-Israel or critical, disputes this; the disagreement in coverage is only about how to interpret his influence, not whether he supports Israel.

Support Israel directly

Ellison's decades of giving to FIDF are a reminder that supporting the soldiers who defend Israel doesn't require billions, just a willingness to show up. Our IDF necklace is a small, everyday way to carry that same solidarity, and our full IDF collection has more pieces designed to honor the men and women in uniform.

Last updated July 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.