Who’s Larry Ellison and How AI Made Him The Richest Man on Earth

Larry Ellison, the 81-year-old co-founder of Oracle, is having one of the most remarkable moments in modern tech history. After decades in the background as the brash billionaire behind database software, Ellison is now front and centerin the global race for artificial intelligence. In September 2025, following a jaw-dropping $300 billion deal with OpenAI, Ellison briefly overtook Elon Musk to become the richest person on the planet.

So how did a company known for enterprise software suddenly become a core player in the AI infrastructure boom? And who exactly is the man behind it all—someone who once preferred sailing yachts over board meetings, but is now building data centers at a scale never seen before?

We’ll explore Ellison’s journey from dropout to tech titan, the risks and rewards behind Oracle’s AI transformation, the $455B backlog that stunned Wall Street, and whether this bet on AI will make Oracle the next Nvidia—or the next Cisco.

From Chicago to Silicon Valley

Larry Ellison was born in 1944 in New York City to a single mother and was adopted by his aunt and uncle in Chicago when he was just nine months old. He grew up on the South Side in a small apartment, raised by a strict stepfather who worked for the government and often dismissed Ellison’s ambitions. Their relationship was distant, and Ellison has said he grew up feeling like an outsider—something that later fueled his drive to prove himself.

He enrolled at the University of Illinois and later at the University of Chicago but dropped out of both before earning a degree. What he did take away, though, was a growing interest in computers. In the early 1970s, Ellison moved to California, took on programming jobs, and eventually joined Ampex, where he helped develop a classified database project for the CIA. The project was called “Oracle.”

Inspired by that work—and a 1970 research paper from IBM that described relational databases—Ellison co-founded a company in 1977 with colleagues Bob Miner and Ed Oates. Initially called Software Development Laboratories, the startup aimed to commercialize the database concept before IBM could bring it to market. They named their product Oracle and, eventually, the company itself.

Oracle went public in 1986, just one day before Microsoft. It grew quickly, winning major corporate and government contracts, but not without missteps. In 1990, the company nearly collapsed after booking future sales too aggressively. Ellison responded with layoffs and a cultural reset, keeping the company alive and doubling down on enterprise software.

By the mid-1990s, Oracle had emerged as the dominant player in the database market. Its software became the invisible backbone for thousands of businesses worldwide. Ellison, meanwhile, had become a billionaire—known for his sharp tongue, lavish lifestyle, and belief that winning mattered more than being liked.

Those early experiences—scrappy, risky, and often personal—shaped both Ellison’s approach to business and Oracle’s culture of aggressive ambition. It’s a mindset that continues to define how he navigates today’s AI-driven transformation.

Oracle’s Giant AI Bet

Fast forward to 2025: Oracle, long considered a legacy software giant, is now one of the top players in the global AI arms race. This shift came largely due to a massive $300 billion deal with OpenAI. The agreement—one of the largest cloud contracts in history—positions Oracle as the main provider of computing infrastructure for the makers of ChatGPT.

This contract alone helped Oracle’s order backlog skyrocket to $455 billion, with projections of passing $500 billion in the coming months. As a result, Oracle’s stock surged nearly 40% in a single day, briefly pushing its market valuation close to $950 billion, just shy of joining the trillion-dollar club.

Oracle isn’t just selling software anymore—it’s selling raw computing power, data centers, and the cloud infrastructure AI companies desperately need.

The AI deal may have made headlines, but it’s not without risk. OpenAI reportedly generates around $10 billion in annual revenue, which is just a fraction of what it will owe Oracle each year under the new agreement. Unless OpenAI finds a sustainable business model fast, Oracle could be left with idle data centers and a costly investment.

Moreover, Oracle is now heavily dependent on one customer, which makes it vulnerable to shifts in the AI market. Unlike Microsoft, Amazon, or Google—who all have diversified business models—Oracle is betting nearly everything on artificial intelligence.

Still, Ellison seems unfazed. His philosophy has always been to bet big and go against the crowd. “Winning—that’s my idea of fun,” he once told a reporter.

Building the AI Infrastructure

To deliver on its AI promises, Oracle must rapidly expand its data center capacity. Just the OpenAI contract alone will require an estimated 4.5 gigawatts of power—twice the output of the Hoover Dam. Oracle plans to build a network of hyperscale data centers across the U.S., from Wyoming to Texas.

That also means a staggering investment in hardware. Oracle is aggressively buying Nvidia chips, which power the training and inference of large AI models. But unlike Nvidia, which sells the tools of the AI age, Oracle is taking on the risk of operating and maintaining the infrastructure.

As Oracle’s debt-to-equity ratio climbs above 400%—much higher than its competitors—it’s clear the company is borrowing heavily to fund this transformation.

Ellison has always stood apart from Silicon Valley’s hoodie-wearing founder archetypes. He used to show up to work at 1:30 p.m., spent years away sailing yachts, and even bought 98% of a Hawaiian island. Despite—or perhaps because of—his unorthodox leadership, Oracle has now become one of the biggest winners of the AI era.

His personal fortune is tied closely to Oracle, where he owns more than 40% of shares. That equity surge pushed his net worth to over $370 billion, briefly topping Elon Musk.

Ellison is also no stranger to tech investments. He backed Tesla, joined Apple’s board to help Steve Jobs return, and even funded early AI companies like Imagene AI for cancer research. He’s pledged to give away 95% of his wealththrough the Giving Pledge, which he signed in 2010.

Will Oracle’s AI Bet Pay Off?

Some analysts believe Oracle could become the Cisco of the AI bubble—rising fast during the hype, only to crash when demand or technology shifts. Others argue Ellison has done this before: proving the skeptics wrong about databases in the 1980s, enterprise software in the 1990s, and cloud computing in the 2010s.

What’s certain is that Oracle has gone all in on AI infrastructure, putting itself at the center of the next computing revolution. The future of Ellison’s wealth—and perhaps of Oracle itself—now depends on whether this AI boom turns into a long-term transformation or a short-lived frenzy.

Either way, Larry Ellison has already achieved what most billionaires only dream of: a second act bigger than the first.

Conclusion

Larry Ellison has always done things differently. From building a database empire in the 1980s to investing in cloud computing when few believed in it, his career has been shaped by long-term thinking, bold decisions, and a willingness to stay the course while others pivot.

Now, with Oracle’s shift toward powering artificial intelligence infrastructure, Ellison is once again placing a major bet—not on a trend, but on a deeper shift in how the world computes, builds, and thinks. It’s a move that carries real risk: OpenAI’s business model is still evolving, competition from larger cloud providers is intense, and the rapid pace of AI development means today’s investments may need constant reinvention.

But unlike the hype cycles that dominate headlines, Oracle’s transformation seems rooted in something more fundamental. Ellison isn’t trying to chase the next breakthrough—he’s trying to build the foundation that supports it.

At 81, he has little to prove. And yet, he remains deeply involved—not just as a shareholder, but as someone still shaping the direction of the company he founded nearly five decades ago.

Whether this new chapter brings long-term rewards or hard lessons, Oracle’s pivot to AI will likely define the legacy of both the company and its founder. And Ellison, true to form, appears content to let time—not headlines—be the judge.