[TRENDINGPOLITICSNEWS] Four months ago, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison acquired nearly 98% of the 141 square-mile Hawaiian island of Lanai, buying it from billionaire David Murdock for an undisclosed sum, rumored to be around $500 million. Ellison’s holdings on the island include two resorts, golf courses, numerous commercial and residential properties, and extensive undeveloped land once used for pineapple cultivation. Lanai is about 40 miles west of Lahaina in western Maui, where the fires took place.
The island’s 3,000 inhabitants have been uncertain about Ellison’s intentions for Lanai. However, in a recent interview on CNBC’s "Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo," Ellison disclosed his vision of transforming the island into an eco-friendly haven, emphasizing electric vehicles, organic agriculture, and solar energy.
"What we are going to do is turn Lanai into a model for sustainable enterprise," said Ellison, one of the world’s richest men, to Maria Bartiromo. "I own the water utility, I own the electric utility. The electric utility is all going to be solar photovoltaic and solar thermal where it can convert sea water into fresh water."
However, Ellison’s vision goes beyond merely powering the island with solar energy and using solar thermal for desalination to generate fresh water. He also intends to introduce organic farming.
"We have drip irrigation where we are going to have organic farms all over the island. Hopefully we are going to export produce — really the best, organic produce to Japan and elsewhere. We are going to support the local people and help them start these businesses. We will have electric cars. So it’s going to be a little, if you will, laboratory for sustainability in businesses of small scale."
Thus, Ellison was pitching the concept of turning Lanai into an ’eco lab’ featuring electric cars, solar energy, and organic farming. But local residents complain Ellison did not engage with the island’s community, failing to communicate his intentions, address potential concerns, or gather feedback. Ellison has also been accused of seeking to turn the 90,000-acre island into a "playground for the super rich."
Pulama Lanai, the management company he set up to oversee the island’s transformation, was also lambasted by residents for creating a "housing shortage."
The Real Deal reported, "Ellison owns the island’s main grocery store, the only gas station, the community newspaper and the only non-Four Seasons hotel. His development plans tend to be secret. Many locals have heard that he plans to make the island ’sustainable,’ though not how."
"Residents say that no other entity can balance Ellison’s control, meaning his decisions carry the weight of the law, with minimal discussions of new projects and almost no due process," the report added.
There are also serious questions about the government’s response to the wildfire.
The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency confirmed that no sirens linked to Maui’s Emergency Alert System were activated on that day. Adam Weintraub, a department spokesperson, explained that the system, which comprises 80 sirens across Maui, is designed to motivate people to seek detailed emergency information, like via online, TV, or radio broadcasts.
"The siren is a message, but it’s not a very specific message, and so each time we sound them, there is a balancing in the decision," Weintraub said. "Will it cause more good or more harm?"
"The best I can say is that given the speed and demands of the incident, I don’t have any concerns in the way that Maui County handled it the way I know now, but we can talk about that again after we’re done ensuring people are safe," he added.
Describing the devastation, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green attempted to deflect responsibility for the emergency response failure to NBC’s Lester Holt.
"It’s too early for me to tell," Green said when asked whether the siren system wasn’t employed because of human decision or equipment failure.
"Much of the equipment was destroyed with fire and it’s a very remote place. This was a western edge of the island of Maui," Green said. "Of course, we would never diminish any kind of responsibility. They were all fighting in fires across the islands."
In May, Hawaiian officials reported suspected widespread arson on the island of Maui.
"Fire and police suspect someone is intentionally setting them," said Maui Mayor Michael Victorino.
In June 2012, Larry Ellison, then CEO of Oracle Corporation, purchased Castle & Cooke's 98 percent share of the island for $300 million. The state and individual homeowners own the remaining 2 percent, which includes the harbor and the private homes where the 3,000 inhabitants live.[23] Ellison, who believes renewable energy must be cost-competitive with fossil fuels in order to be viable,[24] stated his intention to invest as much as $500 million to improve the island's infrastructure and create an environmentally friendly agricultural industry.[25][26] As of 2016, Ellison had spent an estimated $450 million to remodel his Four Seasons Resort Lanai at Manele Bay, which reopened in April 2016 after a seven-month shutdown. In Lanai City, he built a new water-filtration system and a resort-style, Olympic-size public pool. He also refurbished the historic movie theater (built in the 1920s but mostly shut since the 1970s), turning it into a state-of-the art movie house. His second Four Seasons Resort, at Kōʻele in the mountains, was renovated and reopened as Sensei Lanaʻi in 2020.[27] Ellison also started a solar-powered hydroponic farming venture, “Sensei,” which has two 20,000-square-foot computer-monitored greenhouses, and, as of April 2020, he plans to build four more.[28][9]
Until 2020, Ellison was in negotiations to purchase the diesel-powered utility assets of the island in order to build a sustainable power system consisting of solar power and batteries.[29][9] However, it was reported in May 2020 that, while plans to transition from using fossil fuels to renewable resources continue, the talks by Ellison's company to acquire the utility had ended.[30]
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