Larry Ellison: Life, Career, Net Worth of Oracle CTO and Cofounder

Larry Ellison is the founder and chief technology officer of the software giant Oracle.

Now, he’s also the world’s fifth-wealthiest man, with a net worth of $238 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Ellison’s 2025 was marked by big financial gains and losses. Ellison briefly claimed the title of the world’s richest person when his net worth soared to $393 billion that September. Oracle shares surged after the company reported quarterly results and delivered a blockbuster outlook for its AI-powered cloud business. Later that month, his wealth had nearly doubled during the year.

However, his fortune took a $25 billion hit toward the end of 2025 after Oracle’s shares fell by more than 11% based on weaker-than-expected earnings results. December 12 marked one of the largest single-day drops in net worth this year. Tesla chief Elon Musk then resumed his place as the world’s wealthiest man.

Oracle, like other tech giants, is betting big on artificial intelligence, and Ellison is leading the charge at the company. His latest focus is on building data centers for companies such as OpenAI.

Ellison started Oracle in 1977. Decades later, despite living in Hawaii, he’s still one of the top dogs in Silicon Valley.

Here’s a look at Ellison’s life and career so far.

Early life

Ellison was born in the Bronx on August 17, 1944, to a single mother, Florence Spellman. Raised in Chicago’s South Side, he attended the University of Illinois but dropped out after his adoptive mother died. He later attended the University of Chicago for a semester, but also dropped out.

In 1966, at the age of 22, he moved to Berkeley, California, near the emerging tech hub of Silicon Valley. He worked a series of jobs, including at Wells Fargo and mainframe maker Amdahl, where he picked up programming skills.

The birth of Oracle

Oracle was founded in 1977 with $2,000, inspired by IBM scientist Edgar F. Codd’s revolutionary idea of relational databases. Its first product was dubbed Version 2. After briefly rebranding as Relational Software Inc., the company became Oracle Systems in 1982 and went public in 1986 with $55 million in revenue.

Growth was rapid, but in 1990, Oracle nearly went bankrupt after revenue miscalculations led to losses and layoffs. By 1992, the launch of Oracle7 put the company back on track. Throughout the ’90s, Oracle sparred with rivals like Informix and benefited from the dot-com boom, supplying databases to countless startups.

Flush with cash, Oracle went on an acquisition spree, buying PeopleSoft for $10.3 billion in 2005 and Sun Microsystems in 2010, gaining control of key technologies like MySQL. That same year, Ellison recruited Mark Hurd alongside Safra Catz, who later became co-CEOs.

Ellison stepped down as CEO in 2014, assuming the roles of chairman and chief technology officer.

His fortune and how he spends it

Ellison, Oracle’s largest shareholder, has used his fortune to fuel a life of high-profile investments, philanthropy, and headline-making purchases.

He races yachts, sails, and partially financed the BMW Oracle USA team that won the 2010 America’s Cup.

He has also built a collection of Richard Mille watches worth hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars each. In 2009, he purchased the Indian Wells tennis tournament for $100 million.

In 2012, he bought 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanai, where he later moved full-time, developing real estate and a wellness retreat, and backing a farming startup. His real estate portfolio also includes mansions in Malibu, Palm Beach, and Rhode Island.

He has been an active investor for a long time. An early backer of Salesforce, he also invested in Leapfrog and the ill-fated Theranos.

One of his most lucrative bets was NetSuite: A $125 million stake in 1998 turned into a $3.5 billion windfall when Oracle acquired the company in 2016.

Ellison also served on Apple’s board in the late 1990s and joined Tesla’s board in 2018 before stepping down in 2022.

Family

Ellison’s daughter, Megan, is an Oscar-nominated film producer and the founder of Annapurna Pictures. The company has produced films like “Zero Dark Thirty” and “American Hustle.”

Ellison’s son, David, is also in the film business. His company, Skydance Media, has produced movies like “Terminator: Dark Fate” and films in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise.

After months of discussions in 2024, Skydance Media and Paramount agreed to a deal, which created Paramount Skydance. David is the CEO. Ellison and David, who own a controlling stake in Paramount and were outbid by Netflix for Warner Bros. Discovery, launched a hostile $30-per-share offer for all of WBD in December 2025.

Paramount Skydance oversees Paramount Pictures, the streaming services Paramount+ and Pluto TV, as well as CBS and cable networks, including Comedy Central and MTV.

Philanthropy

Ellison signed the Giving Pledge in 2010, vowing to give away 95% of his fortune.

He has donated millions, including $200 million to a USC cancer center in 2016, which was eventually renamed the Ellison Institute of Technology. The EIT announced an Oxford campus in 2023.

He’s also been visible during Donald Trump’s second term as president.

Ellison appeared alongside Sam Altman of OpenAI and Masayoshi Son of SoftBank at Trump’s press conference the day after the president’s inauguration in January 2024 to announce Project Stargate, a joint venture that would see up to $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure in the US.

“He’s sort of CEO of everything. He’s an amazing man,” Trump said as he introduced Ellison, who is seen as his longtime ally.