Technology

Former Oracle Employee Protests Company's Ties With Trump

Paul Ausick

Published: December 21, 2016 9:05 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 4:33 pm

Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) co-CEO Safra Catz signed on to join the transition team of President-elect Donald Trump shortly after she attended last week’s meeting of tech sector leaders with Trump. One Oracle employee, George Polisner, who has worked at the company since 1993, resigned in protest and has initiated a petition seeking signatures from other Oracle employees objecting to Catz’s and Oracle’s support for the Trump administration.

Former International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) employee Elizabeth Wood quit her job at Big Blue following the release of a letter from company CEO Ginni Rometty to Trump congratulating him on his election and offering suggestions on how to achieve his administration’s goals.

Polisner posted his resignation letter Monday on LinkedIn. It said, in part:

I am not with President-elect Trump and I am not here to help him in any way. [emphasis in original]In fact –when his policies border on the unconstitutional, the criminal and the morally unjust –I am here to oppose him in every possible and legal way.

In his petition, posted at NotWhoWeAre.com, Polisner wrote:

As a member of the Oracle Corporation community, I invite all members to stand together against the racial, religious and other intolerance that Donald Trump’s policies and rhetoric promotes. It is putting our Latino, Muslim-American, those with disabilities, and other community members directly at risk.

There is no place for this kind of discrimination at Oracle Corporation or in America.

As a community, we affirm the values that make us who we are: diversity, openness and compassion.

Join me in saying: Donald Trump is not who America is, and he is not who Oracle Corporation is.

Polisner’s petition was posted on Tuesday and had garnered 100 signatures by about midnight. Oracle employs about 136,000 people.