The Vaporstate: Buy Blair, Sell AI

What does US tech billionaire Larry Ellison get when he gives the Tony Blair Institute hundreds of millions of dollars?

More like this: The Vaporstate: ID in India

In our third installment of The Vaporstate, we are joined by two journalists from Lighthouse Reports, who tell all about their investigation into the questionable relationship between Oracle founder Larry Ellison, the Tony Blair Institute, and the current Labour government. What is the Tony Blair Institute and why did Ellison give them millions of dollars? What does any of this have to do with national IDs and NHS data? And if you’re a government official somewhere around the world, and TBI comes knocking to sell you an AI future what you should do…?

Further reading & resources:

• Britain must treat tech giants like nation states — The Times, 2024
• Backlight — Lighthouse’s monthly podcast
• Blair and the Billionaire — Lighthouse Reports 2025
• Inside The Tony Blair Institute — Lighthouse journalists Peter Geoghegan and May Bulman are interviewed by The New Statesman
• Do you have a story that you think is missing from public discourse? Here’s how to get in touch with Lighthouse
• Questions Alix proposed for the Sundance panel — as mentioned in the intro.

**Subscribe to our newsletter to get more stuff than just a podcast — we run events and do other work that you will definitely be interested in!**

Post Production by Sarah Myles | Pre Production by Georgia Iacovou