Ellison Pulls Plug On $115 M Gift

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Oracle Corp. Chief Executive Officer Lawrence J. Ellison rescinded a year-old pledge to donate $115 million to Harvard on Wednesday, saying that he had lost confidence in the University’s ability to spend the money now that University President Lawrence H. Summers has resigned.

The donation, which was set to fund the creation of the Ellison Institute for World Health, would have been the largest in Harvard’s history.

“Larry Ellison had an agreement with Larry Summers. Larry Summers’ departure from Harvard has changed that agreement,” said Bob Wynne, a spokesman for Oracle.

But several individuals familiar with the negotiations between Summers and Ellison said that the billionaire technology tycoon had apparently lost interest in the gift months before Summers’ February announcement that he would resign.

According to two people close to Mass. Hall, Summers had been attempting to persuade Ellison to put the gift on paper for more than a year. The University had been in talks with Ellison even before Summers assumed the presidency in 2001, the sources said, but it was not until Summers came into office that donation plans began to cement.

The individuals, seeking to preserve relations with Summers, agreed only to speak on the condition of anonymity.

Saltonstall Professor of Population Policy Christopher Murray, who was expected to head the new institute, told Bloomberg this week that Ellison had stopped communicating with the University in November of last year—months before Summers’ presidency fell into critical condition.

And according to Wynne, Ellison began questioning the donation “long before November,” though he did not specify the exact moment.

Murray, who has been traveling overseas, did not respond to e-mails from The Crimson this week.

Harvard only heard about Ellison’s withdrawal of his donation through the media and had not heard directly from Ellison, Harvard University Alumni Affairs and Development Director of Media Relations Sarah Friedell said on Wednesday.

According to a source close to Mass. Hall, Summers initially was confident that the gift was secured, and would boast about his relationship with the Oracle chief.

Other University officials were less certain about Ellison’s promise, but Summers turned a deaf ear to demands by top administrators to obtain a formal commitment from Ellison. Summers’ attitude changed sometime last year after frequent delays on Ellison’s end, and the president began scrambling—with no success—to get the gift in writing, the source said.

The underlying cause of Ellison’s change of heart was not immediately clear, but one source close to Mass. Hall said that Ellison had expressed disenchantment with Murray in private meetings on his yacht, and that he was more enthusiastic about having Summers oversee the project than to have Murray lead the institute.

Summers declined to comment through a spokesman.

“We are disappointed with Mr. Ellison’s decision to withdraw his commitment,” Friedell said.

Wynne said he would characterize Ellison’s interaction with Summers as a “discussion,” and he added that there was never any formal agreement between Ellison and Harvard.

“The whole project was Larry Summers’ brainchild,” Wynne said.

Ellison plans to announce a new donation later this summer, Wynne said, but he added that he did not know the identity of the recipient or the size of the gift.

“This is Larry [Ellison]’s money, not [Oracle’s] money,” he said.

Ellison’s stunning announcement came amid reports in the media this week that Harvard was still waiting on a $115 million donation from the Oracle CEO. Ellison publicly announced the gift in June 2005.

The Financial Times first reported on June 21 that Harvard had been left in a lurch by Ellison. The newspaper reported that the new global health institute had delayed plans to hire 130 employees by next summer and had dismissed three senior staff members that had already been hired. Murray said in the report that he had expected to receive the money from Ellison by last September.

—Staff writer Javier C. Hernandez can be reached at jhernand@fas.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Brittney L. Moraski can be reached at bmoraski@fas.harvard.edu.