Larry Ellison

On September 10, 2025, a sharp rise in Oracle’s stock value briefly made Ellison the world’s richest person, with an estimated net worth of $393 billion. ⁴ As of December 2025, Forbes estimated his net worth at $238.4 billion. ⁵

Career

Larry Ellison worked at Ampex Corporation in the 1970s, where he helped build a relational database for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) codenamed “Oracle.” ^{6  7} In 1977, with partners Bob Miner and Ed Oates, he founded Software Development Laboratories, later renamed to Oracle Corporation. Oracle pioneered commercial relational databases and grew aggressively, surviving near-bankruptcy in 1990. Ellison served as the chief executive officer until 2014 and remains the executive chairman as of December 2025, owning  approximately 40 percent of the company. ⁸

Major acquisitions by Oracle include Sun Microsystems  in 2010, NetSuite in 2016, and Cerner in 2022. ^{9  10  11}

Advocacy

Government Surveillance

Larry Ellison has been a proponent of expansive government surveillance measures. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, he advocated adopting a national ID card system incorporating biometric identifiers like thumbprints and iris scans, offering Oracle’s software for free to build a centralized database merging Social Security, law enforcement, and other records, as a means to combat terrorism. ¹² This vision extended to a “single national security database” for seamless inter-agency data sharing, which he argued would prevent attacks like the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. ^{13  14}

In 2025, Ellison reiterated calls for unifying all citizen data, including genomic information, into one AI-accessible repository to enhance public services and security, though critics warn it risks eroding privacy and enabling pervasive monitoring. ¹⁵ His stance drew criticism from civil liberties groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, which viewed it as a slippery slope toward internal passports and government control. ¹⁶

Following Edward Snowden’s 2013 leaks exposing of the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance program, Ellison criticized Snowden and defended the programs as “absolutely essential” for national security, dismissing privacy concerns. ¹⁷

Artificial Intelligence

Larry Ellison’s influence in the AI sector intersects with government policy, where he pushes for unified national databases to fuel AI advancements in health care, agriculture, and fraud detection. ¹⁸ Oracle’s $11 million annual lobbying targets the White House and U.S. Department of Homeland Security, helping secure AI-related contracts. ¹⁹

In 2025, he joined OpenAI‘s Sam Altman and SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son at the White House to launch Project Stargate, a $500 billion initiative for AI data centers and infrastructure. ²⁰

Support for Israel

Larry Ellison has donated over $26 million to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) since 2014, including a record $16.6 million in 2017, the largest single gift in FIDF history. ²¹ In 2021, amid Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial, in which Ellison testified, he reportedly offered the Prime Minister an Oracle board seat worth approximately $450,000 annually, plus shares. Netanyahu vacationed on Ellison’s Hawaiian island that year, though he declined the offer. ²²

Giving Pledge

In 2010, Larry Ellison signed the Giving Pledge at Warren Buffett‘s urging, committing at least 95 percent of his wealth to philanthropy, alongside Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. He reaffirmed this in September 2025, channeling funds into ventures like the $1.3 billion Ellison Institute at Oxford. ^{23  24}

Controversies

Blair Institute Grants

Through his foundation, Larry Ellison donated $130 million and pledged another $218 million to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. A 2025 Lighthouse Reports investigation alleged the funding transformed the think tank into a de facto global sales and lobbying arm for Oracle in more than 45 countries. ²⁵

Insider Trading Allegation

In 2000, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Ellison with insider trading; he settled for a $100 million payment to charity without admitting wrongdoing, using the money to seed his foundation. ^{26  27}