‘Appalled’ Oracle manager quits after CEO Safra Catz joins Trump transition team
A senior manager at Oracle Corp., George A. Polisner, has resigned following co-Chief Executive Safra Catz’s decision to join the Trump transition team.
Catz, said to be the highest-paid female executive in the U.S. in 2015, was part of the group of tech leaders invited by Donald Trump last week to Trump Towers in New York. The Israeli-American exec had not been vocal in the past about the election or Trump, but was said to be the first of the tech attendees at that meeting to board the transition team.
According to Federal Election Commission data, Catz had made no donations to Trump’s campaign, although in the past she had donated to Republican and Democratic congressional campaigns.
Prior to the meeting, Catz was reported as saying, “I plan to tell the president-elect that we are with him and will help in any way we can. If he can reform the tax code, reduce regulation and negotiate better trade deals, the U.S. technology industry will be stronger and more competitive than ever.”
Polisner, who has started a campaign against Trump on NotWhoWeAre, issued a statement asking members of the Oracle community to stand against the racial and religious intolerance that he said Trump’s rhetoric promotes.
In no uncertain terms, Polisner, who stated he is an exponent of social and economic justice, lambasted Trump and said that he was “appalled” that he could become the U.S. President. “His profound ignorance, irresponsible speeches, advocacy of violence against his opponent and protesters and his attempts to further polarize America have given license to every racist, misogynist and xenophobic extremist in America,” he wrote, adding that he had no choice but to “resign from this once great company.”
Polisner’s campaign comes just a day after around 100 employees at IBM Corp. created a campaign stating disappointment with Chief Executive Ginni Rometty’s open letter to President-elect Donald Trump. In the letter Rometty congratulated Trump on his victory and said she looked forward to policies that created new jobs, increased cyber-security and brought “money home to invest in America.”
The ensuing campaign noted that Rometty had not reaffirmed IBM’s “core values of diversity, inclusiveness, and ethical business conduct” in her open letter. The letter, signed off by IBMers past and present, stated: “Taking a conservative approach has grave implications. Our own founder’s experience and the rest of history teach us that accommodating those who unleash forces of aggressive nationalism, bigotry, racism, fear, and exclusion inevitably yields devastating outcomes for millions of innocents.”
Photo credit: Sen Chang via Flickr
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