This article is more than 1 year old

Pomp and ceremony: When the US Secretary of State meets Oracle overlord Larry

Up for discussion? Iran, another term for Trump, and maybe, just maybe, Bezos and THAT cloud contract will get a mention

Oracle execs are no stranger to pressing the flesh with senior politicos in the White House and tonight, Oracle's chief techie Larry Ellison is set to break bread with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The permatanned one - Larry rather than US President Trump - is scheduled to dine with Pompeo and 14 other senior tech heads, said by Bloomberg to include venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and Gregory Becker, the boss of Silicon Valley Bank.

The Republicans are seeking to garner support for another term in office, amid heightened tensions between the US administration and that of Iran. This follows America's recent assassination by drone of the country's number two in command, Qasem Soleimani, a Major General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Larry is no stranger to conflict himself, having waged a wars of words with SAP, Salesforce and, of late, Jeff Bezos at Amazon, or more specifically its Web Services arm, which is currently appealing the Department of Defense's decision to award the $10bn decade-long JEDI cloud service deal to Microsoft.

AWS was thought to be in pole position to win the mega contract, but asserts that Trump intervened and as such placed "the very integrity of the government procurement process in question."

Andy Jassy, CEO at AWS, previously said there had been "significant political interference" and claimed that Trump being "willing to share openly his disdain" for Amazon made it "difficult" for government agencies, "including the DoD, to make an objective decision without fear of reprisal."

Lest we forget, Oracle CEO Safra Catz previously dined with Trump and may have exchanged tips on how to wind up Bezos. Catz has been linked to the orange one's - Donald's rather than Ellison's - administration on several occasions, including being made as Secretary of the Treasury.

Bezos might have upset Larry when he talked of ending Amazon's use of Oracle database wares, and he might have upset Trump when The Washington Post - which he owns - criticised The Donald and was subsequently branded fake news.

So tonight's dinner will give the Oracle overlord the opportunity discuss with Pompeo the ways to alleviate escalating tensions and find a constructive route forward. The pair may also discuss Iran. And if they have time, some tanning tips might be exchanged. ®

More about

More about

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like