Larry Ellison
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Lawrence Joseph Ellison, born August 17, 1944, is a titan of American business and a visionary entrepreneur. He's the co-founder of the software powerhouse, Oracle Corporation. From 1977 to 2014, he helmed Oracle as its chief executive officer, and today, he continues to shape its future as its chief technology officer and executive chairman. A centibillionaire, as of September 2025, he holds the distinguished title of the second richest person in the world. In fact, on September 10, 2025, Ellison briefly reigned as the wealthiest individual globally, with an estimated net worth soaring to $393 billion. Beyond his corporate empire, Ellison is also known for his significant ownership of Lānaʻi, the sixth-largest island in the Hawaiian chain, where he possesses a remarkable 98 percent stake.
Born in New York City on August 17, 1944, to Florence Spellman, a Jewish mother, Ellison's biological father was an Italian-American pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps. A childhood bout of pneumonia at nine months old led his mother to give him up for adoption to her aunt and uncle. He wouldn't reconnect with his mother until he was 48.
Ellison's formative years were spent in Chicago's South Shore, a predominantly Jewish middle-class neighborhood, with his adoptive parents. He fondly recalls his adoptive mother, Lillian Spellman Ellison, as warm and loving, while his adoptive father, Louis Ellison, a government employee who had a brief but ultimately unsuccessful real estate venture, was perceived as austere and unsupportive. Louis Ellison, whose last name was chosen to honor Ellis Island, his point of entry into the United States, instilled a sense of American identity.
Though raised in a Reform Jewish household and attending synagogue regularly, Larry Ellison remained a religious skeptic. At thirteen, he famously refused a bar mitzvah, stating, "While I think I am religious in one sense, the particular dogmas of Judaism are not dogmas I subscribe to. I don't believe that they are real. They're interesting stories. They're interesting mythology, and I certainly respect people who believe these are literally true, but I don't. I see no evidence for this stuff." His affinity for Israel, he clarifies, stems not from religious sentiment but from the nation's innovative spirit in the technology sector.
Ellison attended South Shore High School in Chicago before enrolling at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign as a pre-med student, where he was recognized as science student of the year. He withdrew after his sophomore year, following the death of his adoptive mother, without completing final exams. After a summer in California in 1966, he briefly attended the University of Chicago, studying physics and mathematics, and where he first encountered computer design. He then relocated to Berkeley, California, embarking on a career as a computer programmer for various companies.
During the 1970s, after a brief period at Amdahl Corporation, Ellison joined Ampex Corporation. His initial project involved developing a database for the CIA, codenamed "Oracle." Inspired by Edgar F. Codd's seminal paper on relational database systems, "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks," Ellison co-founded Software Development Laboratories, or SDL, in 1977 with two partners, investing $1,200 of his own $2,000 startup capital.
Despite his strong technical acumen, Ellison was not officially classified as a developer until around 1984. The founding team strategically assigned him to sales, recognizing the others' superior technical prowess.
In 1979, the company rebranded as Relational Software, Inc., or RSI. Ellison aimed for compatibility with IBM's System R database, also based on Codd's theories, but IBM's refusal to share error codes made this impossible. The inaugural Oracle Database release in 1979 was surprisingly named Oracle version 2, with no version 1 preceding it. By 1983, the company officially became Oracle Systems Corporation, named after its flagship product. A significant crisis loomed in 1990 when Oracle laid off 10% of its workforce, approximately 400 individuals, due to financial losses. This near-bankruptcy situation stemmed from Oracle's aggressive "up-front" sales strategy, which incentivized salespeople to push for the largest possible software purchases at once. Future license sales were booked in the current quarter to boost bonuses, creating a problem when those anticipated sales failed to materialize. Oracle was compelled to restate its earnings twice and faced class-action lawsuits for overstating its financial performance. Ellison later acknowledged this as an "incredible business mistake."
While IBM dominated the mainframe relational database market with DB2 and SQL/DS, it hesitated to enter the market for relational databases on Unix and Windows operating systems. This void was filled by Sybase, Oracle, Ingres, Informix, and eventually Microsoft, who seized control of mid-range systems and microcomputers. During this period, Oracle fell behind Sybase, which enjoyed rapid growth and industry acclaim from 1990 to 1993. However, Sybase's 1996 merger with Powersoft diluted its focus on core database technology. In 1993, Sybase sold the rights to its Windows-based database software to Microsoft, which now markets it as "SQL Server." In his early years at Oracle, Ellison was recognized with the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the High Technology Category.
By 1994, Informix had surpassed Sybase, becoming Oracle's primary rival. A fierce rivalry ensued between Informix CEO Phil White and Ellison, dominating Silicon Valley headlines for three years. In April 1997, Informix announced a significant revenue shortfall and earnings restatements. Phil White eventually faced legal consequences, and IBM acquired Informix in 2001. Also in 1997, Ellison joined the board of Apple Computer upon Steve Jobs' return, resigning in 2002. With the decline of Informix and Sybase, Oracle enjoyed a period of industry dominance until the emergence of Microsoft SQL Server in the late 1990s and IBM's acquisition of Informix Software in 2001 to bolster its DB2 offerings. By 2013, Oracle's main competition for new database licenses on UNIX, Linux, and Windows operating systems came from IBM's DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server, while IBM's DB2 maintained its lead in the mainframe database market. In 2005, Ellison agreed to settle a four-year-old insider-trading lawsuit by donating $100 million to charity in Oracle's name.
Oracle Corporation's compensation for Ellison in 2005 included a $975,000 salary, a $6,500,000 bonus, and other compensation totaling $955,100. By 2007, his total compensation reached $61,180,524, including a $1,000,000 base salary, an $8,369,000 cash bonus, and $50,087,100 in stock options. In 2008, his earnings climbed to $84,598,700, comprising a $1,000,000 base salary, a $10,779,000 cash bonus, no stock grants, and $71,372,700 in stock options. For the fiscal year ending May 31, 2009, he earned $56.8 million. In 2006, Forbes recognized him as the wealthiest Californian. In April 2009, following a competitive bid involving IBM and Hewlett-Packard, Oracle announced its intention to acquire Sun Microsystems. On July 2, 2009, for the fourth consecutive year, Oracle's board granted Ellison another 7 million stock options. On August 22, 2009, it was reported that Ellison would receive a symbolic $1 base salary for fiscal year 2010, a reduction from the $1,000,000 he earned in fiscal 2009.
Following regulatory approval in the United States and the European Union, Oracle finalized its acquisition of competitor Sun Microsystems on January 21, 2010. This acquisition also granted Oracle control of the widely used MySQL open-source database, which Sun had acquired in 2008. On August 9, 2010, Ellison publicly criticized Hewlett-Packard's board for dismissing CEO Mark Hurd, stating, "The HP board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago." Ellison and Hurd shared a close personal friendship. Subsequently, on September 6, Oracle hired Mark Hurd as co-president alongside Safra Catz, while Ellison maintained his existing role at Oracle.
In March 2010, Forbes ranked Ellison as the sixth-richest person globally and the third-richest American, with an estimated net worth exceeding $28 billion. On July 27, 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported Ellison as the highest-paid executive of the past decade, with total compensation reaching $1.84 billion. By September 2011, Forbes listed Ellison as the fifth wealthiest man in the world and still the third richest American, with a net worth of approximately $36.5 billion. In September 2012, he was again listed by Forbes as the third richest American citizen, behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, with a net worth of $44 billion. In October 2012, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index placed him just behind David Hamilton Koch as the eighth richest person globally. Ellison holds stakes in companies such as Salesforce.com, NetSuite, Quark Biotechnology Inc., and Astex Pharmaceuticals. In June 2012, Ellison agreed to purchase 98 percent of the Hawaiian island of Lānaʻi from David H. Murdock's company, Castle & Cooke, for an estimated $500 million to $600 million. In 2013, The Wall Street Journal reported Ellison's earnings at $94.6 million. On September 18, 2014, Ellison appointed Mark Hurd as CEO of Oracle, succeeding his former position as president, while Safra Catz also became CEO, moving from her role as CFO. Ellison then assumed the positions of chief technology officer and executive chairman.
In November 2016, Oracle acquired NetSuite for $9.3 billion. At the time of the purchase, Ellison owned 35% of NetSuite, translating to a personal gain of $3.5 billion. In 2017, Forbes estimated Ellison as the fourth wealthiest individual in the technology sector. By June 2018, Forbes reported Ellison's net worth at approximately $54.5 billion. In December 2018, Ellison joined the board of directors of Tesla, Inc., following his acquisition of 3 million shares earlier that year. He departed the Tesla Board in August 2022. In June 2020, Ellison was reported as the seventh wealthiest person globally, with a net worth of $66.8 billion. By late 2022, Ellison held 42.9 percent of Oracle Corporation's shares, and in June 2023, he owned 1.4 percent of Tesla's shares. Ellison's software startup, Project Ronin, co-founded with David Agus and Dave Hodgson, ceased operations in 2024. The company aimed to revolutionize cancer care by rapidly analyzing data within electronic medical records systems.
In 1992, Ellison sustained a severe elbow injury in a high-speed bicycle accident. Following treatment at the University of California, Davis, he donated $5 million to establish the Lawrence J. Ellison Musculo-Skeletal Research Center. In 1998, the Lawrence J. Ellison Ambulatory Care Center opened on the Sacramento campus of the UC Davis Medical Center.
To resolve an insider trading lawsuit stemming from his sale of nearly $1 billion in Oracle stock, a court permitted Ellison to donate $100 million to his own charitable foundation without admitting wrongdoing. A California judge denied Oracle's request to cover Ellison's $24 million in legal fees, with Ellison's lawyer arguing that such payment could be construed as an admission of guilt. His charitable contributions to Stanford University raised questions about the independence of two Stanford professors who had evaluated the case's merits for Oracle. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Ellison made a controversial offer to donate software to the federal government, enabling the creation and operation of a national identification database and the issuance of ID cards.
Forbes' 2004 list of charitable donations by the wealthiest 400 Americans indicated that Ellison had donated $151,092,103, approximately 1% of his estimated personal wealth. In August 2010, a report named Ellison as one of the 40 billionaires who had signed "The Giving Pledge." In June 2006, Ellison announced he would not honor his prior pledge of $115 million to Harvard University, citing the departure of former president Lawrence Summers. Oracle spokesperson Bob Wynne stated, "It was really Larry Summers' brainchild and once it looked like Larry Summers was leaving, Larry Ellison reconsidered...." In 2007, Ellison pledged $500,000 to fortify a community center in Sderot, Israel, after discovering it lacked protection against rocket attacks. Other notable charitable donations include a $10 million contribution to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces in 2014, followed by a $16.6 million donation in 2017 to support the construction of well-being facilities on a new campus for co-ed conscripts. In May 2016, Ellison donated $200 million to the University of Southern California to establish the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC, later renamed the Ellison Institute of Technology, with an additional campus established in Oxford in 2023 offering scholarships to twenty students annually. In 2023, his foundation provided over £52 million to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and pledged an additional $218 million.
Ellison is a licensed pilot and has owned numerous aircraft. He was cited by the city of San Jose, California, for exceeding its limits on late-night takeoffs and landings at San Jose Mineta International Airport for planes exceeding 75,000 pounds. In January 2000, Ellison challenged the interpretation of the airport rule, asserting that his Gulfstream V aircraft was certified to fly at either 75,000 pounds or 90,000 pounds for heavier loads or longer flights requiring more fuel. He maintained that the plane only landed in San Jose when weighing 75,000 pounds or less, with documented proof. In June 2001, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled in Ellison's favor, granting a waiver for his jet but not invalidating the curfew. Ellison also owns at least two military jets: the Italian training aircraft SIAI-Marchetti S.211 and a decommissioned Soviet MiG-29 fighter, though the U.S. government has denied him permission to import the latter.
Ellison made a brief cameo appearance in the 2010 film Iron Man 2. In July 2013, Ellison opened a restaurant in Malibu called Nikita, which closed in December 2014. In 2017, Ellison funded Sensei Ag, a farming company that aims to revolutionize global food production using AI, robotics, and software. However, a February 2025 Wall Street Journal report criticized the venture, citing basic mistakes in technology choices, leadership, and access to expertise, suggesting it was not living up to its promises.
In 2009, Ellison acquired the Indian Wells Tennis Garden facility and the Indian Wells Masters tournament for $100 million, subsequently investing another $100 million into the club. In 2010, he purchased a 50% stake in the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament.
Amidst the economic downturn of 2010, Ellison sold his share of "Rising Sun," then the world's 12th largest yacht, making David Geffen the sole owner. The vessel, measuring 453 feet, reportedly cost over $200 million to build. Ellison downsized to "Musashi," a 288-foot yacht manufactured by Feadship. Ellison actively participates in yachting through Oracle Team USA. Following success in Maxi yacht racing, he founded BMW Oracle Racing to compete for the 2003 Louis Vuitton Cup. In 2002, Ellison's Oracle team introduced kite yachting to the America's Cup arena, achieving kite sail flying for approximately thirty minutes during testing in New Zealand. BMW Oracle Racing served as the "Challenger of Record" for the Golden Gate Yacht Club of San Francisco in the 2007 America's Cup in Valencia, Spain, until its elimination in the semi-finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger-selection series. On February 14, 2010, Ellison's yacht "USA 17" secured a historic victory in the 33rd America's Cup, winning the second race of the best-of-three "deed of gift" series, bringing the Cup back to American shores for the first time since 1995. Ellison served as a crew member in the second race. Previously, Ellison had initiated several legal challenges through the Golden Gate Yacht Club regarding the proposed organization of the 33rd America's Cup by Ernesto Bertarelli, following Bertarelli's team Alinghi's 2007 victory. The races eventually took place in February 2010 in Valencia. On September 25, 2013, Ellison's Oracle Team USA triumphed over Emirates Team New Zealand to win the 34th America's Cup in San Francisco Bay, California. Oracle Team USA, having been penalized two points for cheating in warm-up events, staged a remarkable comeback from a 1-8 deficit to win 9-8, a victory hailed as "one of the greatest comebacks in sports history." In 2019, Ellison, in collaboration with Russell Coutts, launched the SailGP international racing series, featuring F50 foiling catamarans, the fastest class of boat ever built, with regattas held worldwide. Ellison committed five years of funding to support the series until it achieved self-sustainability, with the inaugural season attracting global audiences exceeding 1.8 billion.
Ellison expressed criticism of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, stating, "Snowden had yet to identify a single person who had been 'wrongly injured' by the NSA's data collection." In 2012, he contributed to both Democratic and Republican politicians and, in late 2014, hosted Republican Senator Rand Paul at a fundraiser at his home. Ellison was a significant donor to Conservative Solutions PAC, a super PAC supporting Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential campaign, having contributed $4 million by February 2016. In 2020, Ellison permitted President Donald Trump to hold a fundraiser at his Rancho Mirage estate, though Ellison himself was not present. In January 2022, Ellison donated $15 million to the Opportunity Matters Fund super PAC, associated with Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), marking one of the most substantial financial contributions of the 2022 election cycle. The Washington Post reported in May 2022 that Ellison participated in a conference call days after the 2020 U.S. presidential election focused on strategies to challenge the election's legitimacy. Participants included Fox News host Sean Hannity, Senator Lindsey Graham, Trump's personal attorney Jay Sekulow, and James Bopp, an attorney for True the Vote, according to court documents and a call participant cited by The Post. In January 2025, Ellison joined Sam Altman of OpenAI and Masayoshi Son of Softbank at the White House to announce The Stargate Project. Reports from 2019 indicated that Larry Ellison had contributed to funding an archaeological excavation project in East Jerusalem, which drew criticism from Palestinians, Israeli peace activists, and some archaeologists. Furthermore, in 2019, a $1 billion lawsuit was filed against several Israel supporters, including Ellison, accusing them of conspiring to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Israeli-occupied territories, committing war crimes, and funding genocide. The case was dismissed in February 2024. Ellison reportedly lobbied Israeli mogul Arnon Milchan to dismiss his lawyer, allowing Benjamin Netanyahu to hire him for one of his corruption cases. It was also revealed in 2021 that Ellison had offered Netanyahu a position at Oracle.
In 1997, Ellison received the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement. In 2013, he was inducted into the Bay Area Business Hall of Fame. In 2019, the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC honored Ellison with the inaugural Rebels With A Cause Award for his sustained, generous support. Time magazine recognized Ellison as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2024.
Ellison has been married six times. He married Adda Quinn in 1967, divorcing in 1974. Shortly after meeting Nancy Wheeler Jenkins in late 1976, they married, divorcing in 1978, with Wheeler selling her SDL shares back to Ellison for $500. From 1983 to 1986, Ellison was married to Barbara Boothe, a former receptionist at RSI. They have two children, David and Megan, who are film producers at Skydance Media and Annapurna Pictures, respectively. On December 18, 2003, Ellison married romance novelist Melanie Craft at his Woodside estate. Steve Jobs, former CEO and co-founder of Apple Inc., served as the official wedding photographer, and Representative Tom Lantos officiated. They divorced in 2010. From 2010 to 2020, Ellison was in a relationship and later married Ukrainian-American model and actress Nikita Kahn, divorcing in 2020. As of 2024, Ellison is married to Jolin (Keren) Ellison, née Zhu, an alumna of the University of Michigan. Ellison abstains from alcohol and drugs, stating, "I can't stand anything that clouds my mind." He owns numerous exotic cars, including an Audi R8 and a McLaren F1, with his Acura NSX being a particular favorite, gifted annually during its production. Ellison is also reportedly the owner of a Lexus LFA. His art collection includes at least four van Gogh paintings, such as "Bridge across the Seine at Asnières" and "Farmhouse among Olive Trees." Ellison's Woodside, California, estate, valued at an estimated $110 million, is styled after feudal Japanese architecture, featuring a man-made 2.3-acre lake and extensive seismic retrofitting. In 2004 and 2005, he acquired over twelve properties in Malibu, California, valued at more than $180 million. His $65 million purchase of five contiguous lots on Malibu's Carbon Beach was the most expensive residential transaction in U.S. history at the time, until Ronald Perelman sold his Palm Beach, Florida, compound for $70 million later that year. The entertainment system in his Pacific Heights home cost $1 million and includes a rock concert-sized video projector positioned at one end of a drained swimming pool, utilizing the emptied pool as a massive subwoofer. In early 2010, Ellison purchased the historic Astors' Beechwood Mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, for $10.5 million. In 2011, he acquired the 249-acre Porcupine Creek Estate and private golf course in Rancho Mirage, California, for $42.9 million from creditors following the divorce and bankruptcy of its former owners, Edra and Tim Blixseth. In 2022, Ellison bought a 22-acre property in Manalapan, Florida, for $173 million from Jim Clark, who had acquired it from the Ziff family, making it the most expensive residential property purchase in Florida history. In December 2020, Ellison relocated from California to the island of Lānaʻi, where he owns 98 percent of the land. In subsequent years, reports have indicated tensions between Ellison's island businesses and some residents concerning housing and access. A 2022 Bloomberg feature highlighted that many Lānaʻi residents are employed by and rent from Ellison's companies, with commercial tenants often on short 30-day leases and some residential leases containing clauses allowing termination upon loss of employment. In August 2022, Maui County warned Ellison’s Lānaʻi Resorts against blocking public access to Hulopoʻe Beach Park, yet the park's gate remained closed. The company attributed the closure to flooding, a claim disputed by local residents who questioned the duration of the closure. In 2023, the Ellison-owned Lānaʻi Water Company proposed a significant multi-year rate increase to regulators, citing infrastructure and operating costs, which raised concerns among some customers about affordability.
Symonds, Matthew, and Larry Ellison. *Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle*. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. ISBN 978-0-7432-2505-2. OCLC 52638805.
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Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American businessperson and entrepreneur who co-founded the software company Oracle Corporation. He was Oracle's chief executive officer from 1977 to 2014 and is now its chief technology officer and executive chairman. He is a centibillionaire and the 2nd richest person in the world as of September 2025.
On September 10, 2025, Ellison was briefly the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $393 billion. Ellison is also known for his ownership of 98 percent of Lānaʻi, the sixth-largest island in the Hawaiian Islands.
== Early life and education ==
Ellison was born on August 17, 1944, in New York City to a Jewish mother, Florence Spellman. His biological father was an Italian-American United States Army Air Corps pilot. After Ellison contracted pneumonia at the age of nine months, his mother gave him to her aunt and uncle for adoption. He did not meet Spellman again until he was 48.
Ellison moved with his adoptive parents to Chicago's South Shore, then a primarily Jewish middle-class neighborhood. He remembers his adoptive mother, Lillian Spellman Ellison, as warm and loving. He found his adoptive father, Louis Ellison, to be austere, unsupportive, and often distant. A government employee who had made a small fortune in Chicago real estate, only to lose it during the Great Depression, Louis had chosen his last name to honor Ellis Island, his point of entry into the United States.
Although Larry Ellison was raised in a Reform Jewish home by his adoptive parents, who attended synagogue regularly, he remained a religious skeptic. At age 13, Ellison refused to have a bar mitzvah celebration. Ellison states: "While I think I am religious in one sense, the particular dogmas of Judaism are not dogmas I subscribe to. I don't believe that they are real. They're interesting stories. They're interesting mythology, and I certainly respect people who believe these are literally true, but I don't. I see no evidence for this stuff." Ellison says that his fondness for Israel is not connected to religious sentiments but rather due to the innovative spirit of Israelis in the technology sector.
Ellison attended South Shore High School in Chicago and later was admitted to University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and was enrolled as a pre-med student. At the university, he was named science student of the year. He withdrew without taking final exams after his sophomore year because his adoptive mother had just died. After spending the summer of 1966 in California, he then attended the University of Chicago for one term, where he studied physics and mathematics and also first encountered computer design. He then moved to Berkeley, California, and began his career as a computer programmer for several different companies.
== Early career and Oracle ==
=== 1977–1994 ===
During the 1970s, after a brief stint at Amdahl Corporation, Ellison began working for Ampex Corporation. His first project included a database for the CIA, code-named "Oracle". Ellison was inspired by a paper written by Edgar F. Codd on relational database systems called "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks". In 1977, he founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL) with two partners and an investment of $2,000; $1,200 of the money was his.
Although with strong technical skills—Ellison was not officially categorized as a developer until about 1984—the founders decided that as the others were stronger technically, he would run sales.
In 1979, the company renamed itself Relational Software, Inc. (RSI). Ellison had heard about the IBM System R database, also based on Codd's theories, and wanted Oracle to achieve compatibility with it, but IBM made this impossible by refusing to share System R's error codes. The initial release of the Oracle Database in 1979 was called Oracle version 2; there was no Oracle version 1. In 1983, the company officially became Oracle Systems Corporation after its flagship product. In 1990, Oracle laid off 10% of its workforce (about 400 people) because it was losing money. This crisis, which almost resulted in the company's bankruptcy, came about because of Oracle's "up-front" marketing strategy, in which sales people urged potential customers to buy the largest possible amount of software all at once. The sales people then booked the value of future license sales in the current quarter, thereby increasing their bonuses. This became a problem when the future sales subsequently failed to materialize. Oracle eventually had to restate its earnings twice, and had to settle class-action lawsuits arising from its having overstated its earnings. Ellison would later say that Oracle had made "an incredible business mistake".
Although IBM dominated the mainframe relational database market with its DB2 and SQL/DS database products, it delayed entering the market for a relational database on Unix and Windows operating systems. This left the door open for Sybase, Oracle, Ingres, Informix, and eventually Microsoft to dominate mid-range systems and microcomputers. Around this time, Oracle fell behind Sybase. From 1990 to 1993, Sybase was the fastest-growing database company and the database industry's darling vendor, but soon it fell victim to merger mania. Sybase's 1996 merger with Powersoft resulted in a loss of focus on its core database technology. In 1993, Sybase sold the rights to its database software running under the Windows operating system to Microsoft Corporation, which now markets it under the name "SQL Server".
In his early years at Oracle, Ellison was named an Award Recipient in the High Technology Category for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Program.
=== 1994–2010 ===
In 1994, Informix overtook Sybase and became Oracle's most important rival. The intense war between Informix CEO Phil White and Ellison was front-page Silicon Valley news for three years. In April 1997, Informix announced a major revenue shortfall and earnings restatements. Phil White eventually landed in jail, and IBM absorbed Informix in 2001. Also in 1997, Ellison was made a director of Apple Computer after Steve Jobs returned to the company. Ellison resigned in 2002. With the defeat of Informix and of Sybase, Oracle enjoyed years of industry dominance until the rise of Microsoft SQL Server in the late 1990s and IBM's acquisition of Informix Software in 2001 to complement their DB2 database. By 2013 Oracle's main competition for new database licenses on UNIX, Linux, and Windows operating systems came from IBM's DB2 and from Microsoft SQL Server. IBM's DB2 still dominated the mainframe database market.
In 2005, Ellison agreed to settle a four-year-old insider-trading lawsuit by offering to pay $100 million to charity in Oracle's name.
In 2005, Oracle Corporation paid Ellison a $975,000 salary, a $6,500,000 bonus, and other compensation of $955,100. In 2007, Ellison earned a total compensation of $61,180,524, which included a base salary of $1,000,000, a cash bonus of $8,369,000, and options granted of $50,087,100. In 2008, he earned a total compensation of $84,598,700, which included a base salary of $1,000,000, a cash bonus of $10,779,000, no stock grants, and options granted of $71,372,700. In the year ending May 31, 2009, he made $56.8 million. In 2006, Forbes ranked him as the richest Californian. In April 2009, after a tug-of-war with IBM and Hewlett-Packard, Oracle announced its intent to buy Sun Microsystems. On July 2, 2009, for the fourth year in a row, Oracle's board awarded Ellison another 7 million stock options. On August 22, 2009, it was reported that Ellison would be paid only $1 for his base salary for the fiscal year of 2010, down from the $1,000,000 he was paid in fiscal 2009.
=== Since 2010 ===
After approval from regulators in the United States and the European Union, Oracle acquired its competitor Sun Microsystems on January 21, 2010. The Sun acquisition also gave Oracle control of the popular MySQL open source database, which Sun had acquired in 2008. On August 9, 2010, Ellison denounced Hewlett-Packard's board for firing CEO Mark Hurd, writing that: "The HP board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago." Ellison and Hurd were close personal friends. Then on September 6, Oracle hired Mark Hurd as co-president alongside Safra Catz. Ellison remained in his current role at Oracle.
In March 2010, the Forbes list of billionaires ranked Ellison as the sixth-richest person in the world and as the third-richest American, with an estimated net worth of over $28 billion. On July 27, 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported that Ellison was the highest-paid executive in the last decade, collecting a total compensation of US$1.84 billion. In September 2011, Ellison was listed on the Forbes list of billionaires as the fifth richest man in the world and was still the third richest American, with a net worth of about $36.5 billion. In September 2012, Ellison was again listed on the Forbes list of billionaires as the third richest American citizen, behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, with a net worth of $44 billion. In October 2012, he was listed just behind David Hamilton Koch as the eighth richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ellison owns stakes in Salesforce.com, NetSuite, Quark Biotechnology Inc. and Astex Pharmaceuticals. In June 2012, Ellison agreed to buy 98 percent of the Hawaiian island of Lānaʻi from David H. Murdock's company, Castle & Cooke. The price was reported to be between $500 million and $600 million. In 2013, according to The Wall Street Journal, Ellison earned $94.6 million. On September 18, 2014, Ellison appointed Mark Hurd to CEO of Oracle from his former position as president; Safra Catz was also made CEO, moving from her former role as CFO. Ellison assumed the positions of chief technology officer and executive chairman.
In November 2016, Oracle bought NetSuite for $9.3 billion. Ellison owned 35% of NetSuite at the time of the purchase making him $3.5 billion personally.
In 2017, Forbes estimated that Ellison was the 4th richest person in the technology sector.
In June 2018, Ellison's net worth was about $54.5 billion, according to Forbes.
In December 2018, Ellison became a director on the board of Tesla, Inc., after purchasing 3 million shares earlier that year. Ellison left the Tesla Board in August 2022.
In June 2020, Ellison was reported to be the seventh wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of $66.8 billion.
In late 2022, Ellison owned 42.9 percent of the shares of Oracle Corporation, and in June 2023, he owned 1.4 percent of the shares of Tesla.
Ellison's software startup, Project Ronin, that he co-founded with David Agus and Dave Hodgson closed down in 2024. The company intended to transform cancer care using products intended to quickly analyze data within electronic medical records systems.
== Other endeavors ==
In 1992, Ellison shattered his elbow in a high-speed bicycle crash. After receiving treatment at University of California, Davis, Ellison donated $5 million to seed the Lawrence J. Ellison Musculo-Skeletal Research Center. In 1998, the Lawrence J. Ellison Ambulatory Care Center opened on the Sacramento campus of the UC Davis Medical Center.
To settle an insider trading lawsuit arising from his selling nearly $1 billion of Oracle stock, a court allowed Ellison to donate $100 million to his own charitable foundation without admitting wrongdoing. A California judge refused to allow Oracle to pay Ellison's legal fees of $24 million. Ellison's lawyer had argued that if Ellison were to pay the fees, that could be construed as an admission of guilt. His charitable donations to Stanford University raised questions about the independence of two Stanford professors who evaluated the case's merits for Oracle. In response to the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001, Ellison made a controversial offer to donate software to the federal government that would have enabled it to build and run a national identification database and to issue ID cards.
Forbes' 2004 list of charitable donations made by the wealthiest 400 Americans stated that Ellison had donated $151,092,103, about 1% of his estimated personal wealth. In August 2010, a report listed Ellison as one of the 40 billionaires who had signed "The Giving Pledge". In June 2006, Ellison announced he would not honor his earlier pledge of $115 million to Harvard University, claiming it was due to the departure of former president Lawrence Summers. Oracle spokesman Bob Wynne announced, "It was really Larry Summers' brainchild and once it looked like Larry Summers was leaving, Larry Ellison reconsidered ...."
In 2007, Ellison pledged $500,000 to fortify a community centre in Sderot, Israel, after discovering that the building was not fortified against rocket attacks. Other charitable donations by Ellison include a $10 million donation to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces in 2014 followed by a $16.6 million donation in 2017 intended to support the construction of well-being facilities on a new campus for co-ed conscripts.
In May 2016 Ellison donated $200 million to the University of Southern California for establishing a cancer research center: the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC. It was renamed the Ellison Institute of Technology, and an additional campus was established in Oxford in 2023 with the intention of providing a scholarship program for twenty students each year.
In 2023, his foundation gave over £52 million to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and has promised another $218 million.
=== Aviation ===
Ellison is a licensed pilot who has owned several aircraft. He was cited by the city of San Jose, California, for violating its limits on late-night takeoffs and landings from San Jose Mineta International Airport by planes weighing more than 75,000 pounds (34,019 kg). In January 2000, Ellison sued over the interpretation of the airport rule, contending that his Gulfstream V aircraft "is certified by the manufacturer to fly at two weights: 75,000 pounds, and at 90,000 pounds for heavier loads or long flights requiring more fuel. But the pilot only lands the plane in San Jose when it weighs 75,000 pounds or less, and has the logs to prove it." US District Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled in Ellison's favor in June 2001, calling for a waiver for Ellison's jet, but did not invalidate the curfew.
Ellison also owns at least two military jets: the Italian training aircraft SIAI-Marchetti S.211, and a decommissioned Soviet fighter MiG-29, which the US government has refused him permission to import.
=== Movie cameo ===
Ellison made a brief cameo appearance in the 2010 movie Iron Man 2.
=== Restaurant ===
In July 2013, Ellison opened a restaurant in Malibu named Nikita, which closed in December 2014.
=== Farming ===
In 2017, Ellison funded a farming company called Sensei Ag with a promise to use AI, robotics, and software to remake the way people around the world eat. A Wall Street Journal report in February 2025 criticized the effort by saying that the whole endeavor was not keeping its promise due to some basic mistakes on choice of technology, leadership, and having access to know how.
=== Tennis ===
In 2009, Ellison purchased the Indian Wells Tennis Garden tennis facility in California's Coachella Valley and the Indian Wells Masters tournament for $100 million, and has subsequently invested another $100 million into the club.
In 2010, Ellison purchased a 50% share of the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament.
=== Yachting ===
With the economic downturn of 2010, Ellison sold his share of Rising Sun, the 12th largest yacht in the world, making David Geffen the sole owner. The vessel is 453 feet (138 metres) long, and reportedly cost over $200 million to build. He downsized to Musashi, a 288-foot (88-metre) yacht built by Feadship.
Ellison competes in yachting through Oracle Team USA. Following success racing Maxi yachts, Ellison founded BMW Oracle Racing to compete for the 2003 Louis Vuitton Cup.
In 2002, Ellison's Oracle's team introduced kite yachting into the America's Cup environment. Kite sail flying lasting about thirty minutes was achieved during testing in New Zealand.
BMW Oracle Racing was the "Challenger of Record" on behalf of the Golden Gate Yacht Club of San Francisco for the 2007 America's Cup in Valencia, Spain, until eliminated from the 2007 Louis Vuitton Cup challenger-selection series in the semi-finals. On February 14, 2010, Ellison's yacht USA 17 won the second race (in the best of three "deed of gift" series) of the 33rd America's Cup, after winning the first race two days earlier. Securing a historic victory, Ellison and his BMW Oracle team became the first challengers to win a "deed of gift" match. The Cup returned to American shores for the first time since 1995. Ellison served as a crew member in the second race. Previously, Ellison had filed several legal challenges, through the Golden Gate Yacht Club, against the way that Ernesto Bertarelli (also one of the world's richest men) proposed to organize the 33rd America's Cup following the 2007 victory of Bertarelli's team Alinghi. The races were finally held in February 2010 in Valencia.
On September 25, 2013, Ellison's Oracle Team USA defeated Emirates Team New Zealand to win the 34th America's Cup in San Francisco Bay, California. Oracle Team USA had been penalized two points in the final for cheating by some team members during the America's Cup World Series warm-up events. The Oracle team came from a 1–8 deficit to win 9–8, in what has been called "one of the greatest comebacks in sports history".
In 2019, Ellison, in conjunction with Russell Coutts, started the SailGP international racing series. The series used F50 foiling catamarans, the fastest class of boat in history with regattas held across the globe. Ellison committed to five years of funding to support the series until it could become self-sustaining. The first season was successful with global audiences of over 1.8 billion.
== Political involvement ==
Ellison was critical of NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden, saying that "Snowden had yet to identify a single person who had been 'wrongly injured' by the NSA's data collection". In 2012, he donated to both Democratic and Republican politicians, and in late 2014 hosted Republican senator Rand Paul at a fundraiser at his home.
Ellison was one of the top donors to Conservative Solutions PAC, a super PAC supporting Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential bid. By February 2016, Ellison had given $4 million overall to the PAC. In 2020, Ellison allowed president Donald Trump to have a fundraiser at his Rancho Mirage estate, but Ellison was not present. In January 2022, Ellison donated $15 million to the Opportunity Matters Fund super PAC associated with Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), which is one of the most significant financial contributions of the 2022 election cycle.
The Washington Post reported in May 2022 that Ellison participated in a conference call days after the 2020 U.S. presidential election that focused on strategies for challenging the legitimacy of the vote. Other participants on the call included Fox News host Sean Hannity, Senator Lindsey Graham, Trump personal attorney Jay Sekulow, and James Bopp, an attorney for True the Vote. The Post cited court documents and a participant on the call.
In January 2025, Ellison joined Sam Altman of OpenAI and Masayoshi Son of Softbank at the White House to announce The Stargate Project.
According to reports in 2019, Larry Ellison has contributed to funding an archaeological excavation project in East Jerusalem that received criticism from Palestinians as well as Israeli peace activists and some archaeologists. Additionally, in 2019 a $1 billion lawsuit was filed against several Israel supporters, including Ellison. The lawsuit accused Ellison and others of conspiring to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Israeli-occupied territories, committing war crimes, and funding genocide. The case was dismissed in February 2024. Ellison reportedly lobbied Israeli mogul Arnon Milchan to drop his lawyer so that Benjamin Netanyahu could hire him for one of his corruption cases. It was also revealed in 2021 that Ellison offered Netanyahu a post at Oracle.
== Recognition ==
In 1997, Ellison received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
In 2013, Ellison was inducted into the Bay Area Business Hall of Fame.
In 2019, the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC honored Ellison with the first Rebels With A Cause Award in recognition of his generous support through the years.
Ellison was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2024.
== Personal life ==
=== Marriages ===
Ellison has been married six times:
Ellison married Adda Quinn in 1967. They divorced in 1974.
Ellison married Nancy Wheeler Jenkins shortly after meeting her in late 1976. In 1978, the couple divorced and Wheeler sold back her shares in SDL to Ellison for $500.
Ellison was married to Barbara Boothe from 1983 to 1986. Boothe was a former receptionist at RSI. They had two children, David and Megan, who are film producers at Skydance Media and Annapurna Pictures, respectively.
On December 18, 2003, Ellison married Melanie Craft, a romance novelist, at his Woodside estate. Ellison's friend Steve Jobs, former CEO and co-founder of Apple Inc., was the official wedding photographer, and Representative Tom Lantos officiated. They divorced in 2010.
From 2010 until 2020, Ellison was in a relationship and then fifth marriage with Ukrainian-American model and actress Nikita Kahn. They divorced in 2020.
As of 2024, Ellison is married to Jolin (Keren) Ellison (née Zhu), an alumna of the University of Michigan.
=== Health ===
Ellison abstains from alcohol and drugs, stating that "I can't stand anything that clouds my mind."
=== Cars ===
Ellison owns many exotic cars, including an Audi R8 and a McLaren F1. His favorite is the Acura NSX, which he gave as gifts each year during its production. Ellison is also reportedly the owner of a Lexus LFA.
=== Art ===
Ellison owns at least four van Gogh paintings including Bridge across the Seine at Asnières , Farmhouse among Olive Trees .
=== Homes ===
Ellison styled his estimated $110 million Woodside, California, estate after feudal Japanese architecture, complete with a man-made 2.3-acre (0.93 ha) lake and an extensive seismic retrofit. In 2004 and 2005 he purchased more than twelve properties in Malibu, California, worth more than $180 million. The $65 million Ellison spent on five contiguous lots at Malibu's Carbon Beach made this the most costly residential transaction in United States history until banker Ronald Perelman sold his Palm Beach, Florida, compound for $70 million later that same year. The entertainment system at his Pacific Heights home cost $1 million, and includes a rock concert-sized video projector at one end of a drained swimming pool, using the gaping hole as a giant subwoofer.
In early 2010, Ellison purchased the Astors' Beechwood Mansion – formerly the summer home of the Astor family – in Newport, Rhode Island, for $10.5 million.
In 2011 he purchased the 249-acre Porcupine Creek Estate and private golf course in Rancho Mirage, California, for $42.9 million. The property was formerly the home of Yellowstone Club founders Edra and Tim Blixseth, and was sold to Ellison by creditors following their divorce and bankruptcy.
In 2022, Ellison bought a 22-acre property in Manalapan, Florida, for $173 million. He purchased it from Jim Clark, who in turn had acquired it from the Ziff family. It is the most expensive residential property purchase in Florida history.
==== Lanai Controversy ====
In December 2020, he left California and moved to the island of Lānaʻi, where he owns 98 percent of the land. In subsequent years, tensions have been reported between Ellison's businesses on the island and some residents over housing and access. A 2022 Bloomberg feature described how many Lānaʻi residents both work for and rent from Ellison's companies, with commercial tenants commonly on short 30-day leases and some residential leases including provisions allowing termination of tenancy upon loss of employment. In August 2022, Maui County warned Ellison’s Lānaʻi Resorts not to block public access to Hulopoʻe Beach Park, but the parks's gate was closed anyway. The company said the closure was due to flooding, however local residents disputed that and the duration of the closure. In 2023, the Ellison-owned Lānaʻi Water Company put a significant multi-year rate increase before regulators citing infrastructure and operating costs. This drew concern from some customers about affordability.
== Books ==
Symonds, Matthew; Ellison, Larry (2004). Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-2505-2. OCLC 52638805.
== See also ==
Ellison Medical Foundation
== References ==
=== Works cited ===
Symonds, Matthew; Ellison, Larry (2004). Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-2505-2. OCLC 52638805.
== Further reading ==
Filion, Avra Amar (2014). The Ellison Effect. Melbourne, FL: Motivational Press. ISBN 9781518380655. OCLC 1054829496.
Leibovich, Mark (2002). The New Imperialists: How Five Restless Kids Grew up to Virtually Rule Your World. Paramus, N.J.: Prentice Hall Press. ISBN 0735203172. OCLC 47990010.
Stone, Florence M. (2002). The Oracle of Oracle: The Story of Volatile CEO Larry Ellison and the Strategies Behind His Company's Phenomenal Success (1st ed.). AMACOM. ISBN 978-0-8144-0639-7. OCLC 503229870.
Wilson, Mike (1998) [1997]. The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison - God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison: Inside Oracle Corporation. New York, NY: Quill - William Morrow. ISBN 9780688163532. OCLC 53384755.
== External links ==
Profile at Oracle Corporation
Profile at Forbes
Profile at Bloomberg L.P.
Biography at BBC News
Appearances on C-SPAN
Larry Ellison on Charlie Rose
Larry Ellison at IMDb
Larry Ellison collected news and commentary at The New York Times
Works by Larry Ellison at Open Library
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