Larry Ellison
Net Worth: $188.9 Billion (Forbes, 7/1/26)
Who is Larry Ellison?
- Larry Ellison is the co-founder, chairman, and Chief Technology Officer of Oracle, a database management software company that was named after a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project code-name and whose first client was the CIA. From 1977 to 2014, Ellison was Oracle’s Chief Executive Officer. He has a roughly 40% stake in the company.
- Although Oracle offers a commercial line of software products, the company relies heavily on government contracts, raking in billions of dollars annually from selling software at the federal, state, and local level.
- Ellison told legal academic Jeffrey Rosen for his 2004 book, The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age: “The Oracle database is used to keep track of basically everything. The information about your banks, your checking balance, your savings balance, is stored in an Oracle database. Your airline reservation is stored in an Oracle database. What books you bought on Amazon is stored in an Oracle database. Your profile on Yahoo! is stored in an Oracle database.”
- Oracle also runs a cloud computing business, which has surged in the AI era as AI companies seek out large amounts of computing power for their applications. During an Oracle meeting in September 2024, Ellison said that AI would revolutionize surveillance systems, telling investors, “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”
- Ellison and other top Oracle leaders have indicated that their purpose is to support Israel’s interests. In 2021, Safra Catz, Oracle’s ex-CEO and current executive vice chair, said, “We are not flexible regarding our mission, and our commitment to Israel is second to none. This is a free world and I love my employees, and if they don’t agree with our mission to support the State of Israel, then maybe we aren’t the right company for them. Larry [Ellison] and I are publicly committed to Israel and devote personal time to the country, and no one should be surprised by that.” Indeed, Ellison has contributed millions of dollars to the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, a New York-based group that collects donations for the Israeli military; backed the Israeli settlement project; and closely befriended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, vacationing with him and offering him a seat on Oracle’s board to the tune of $450,000.
- In 2012, Ellison purchased 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lāna’i for $300 million, effectively becoming many residents’ employer, landlord, or both. According to Bloomberg, a provision in the residential leases provides that if a person is terminated from a job with any of Ellison’s companies, they can be evicted from their residence. Gentrification on the island has sent property values skyrocketing, pushing out locals who have lived there for generations.
- From 2018 to 2022, Ellison was a member of Tesla’s board of directors and reportedly owns $14 billion worth of shares in the company. He provided $1 billion in backing for Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (now X). In addition, Ellison holds a 0.15% stake in Musk’s SpaceX, which went public in June 2026 with a $1.8 trillion valuation, making Ellison’s stake worth around $2.7 billion.
- Ellison is building a $1.3 billion for-profit research campus in Oxford, United Kingdom called the Ellison Institute of Technology, set for a 2027 completion date. The institute will be powered by Oracle technology and plans to focus on a sprawling range of issues, including AI and robotics. According to the Wall Street Journal, geneticist John Bell was hired to oversee the institute but later exited the role due to clashes with Ellison “over the mix of people being brought into the institute with academic backgrounds versus entrepreneurs experienced at building profitable companies on ambitious timelines.” The University of Oxford has a partnership with the institute through 2030, under which it could earn 1% of profits from joint research projects. Chas Bountra, a university administrator, underscored that the Ellison project must succeed so that Oxford can continue to attract funders and maintain a competitive edge. However, Jane Khedair of the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital at London Business School told the WSJ, “The more money that’s at stake, the bigger the gun you have to your head.”
- Ellison is a longtime friend of Donald Trump’s. In 2020, he hosted a fundraiser for Trump at his California estate where tickets ran for up to $250,000. Shortly after the 2020 election, he joined a call with senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Trump ally and Fox News host Sean Hannity; Jay Sekulow, a Trump lawyer; and James Bopp, Jr., a lawyer for True the Vote, a right-wing nonprofit with a history of spreading dubious claims of voter fraud. The purpose of the call was to discuss strategies for challenging Trump’s loss.
- During the 2024 election cycle, Ellison contributed $45 million to a pro-Trump nonprofit. Since Trump’s victory, Ellison has made his Manalapan, Florida estate, which he purchased for $173 million four years ago, his main residence, located just a 20-minute drive from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
- Ellison’s Oracle has also supported Trump. The company sponsored Trump’s military parade to celebrate the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday in June 2025. It has donated to both America250, a nonprofit launched by a congressionally-created commission that is collecting funds for the country’s celebration of 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and Freedom 250, a Trump-aligned group facilitating a “MAGAfied celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary.”
- Additionally, Oracle built a personnel database for the Heritage Foundation, the pro-Trump right-wing think tank behind Project 2025. The database serves as “a network of vetted and loyal foot soldiers who could be trained and ready on Day One” to carry out Project 2025 but which could also “serve as a resource for the conservative movement for decades to come.”
What does Larry Ellison have to gain from the Trump administration?
- In March 2026, the Trump administration announced that Ellison and his Oracle colleague, Safra Catz, had been appointed to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), which will advise Trump “on strengthening American leadership in science and technology.” The Revolving Door Project has previously written that PCAST is a vessel that will allow its members, like Oracle’s Ellison and Catz, “to freely lobby on behalf of the tech industry’s interests without the need for lobbyist intermediaries—especially at meetings with the president and his closest advisors.”
- On January 21, 2025, the day after his inauguration, Trump announced the Stargate project whereby Ellison, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son pledged a $500 billion investment to build out AI data centers in the U.S. If even some of this effort comes to fruition, it could be a further boon for Ellison’s Oracle whose cloud computing business has already seen gains in the AI era and now looks to increase its data center capacity to profit even more from powering the country’s AI aspirations.
- In July 2025, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission approved the $8 billion merger between Hollywood studios Paramount and Skydance shortly after Paramount agreed to pay Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit stemming from allegations that CBS’ “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris to make her more appealing to voters. Skydance was founded by Larry Ellison’s son, David Ellison, who now serves as chairman and CEO of the merged Paramount-Skydance company. This merger concentrates control of channels like CBS, MTV, and Nickelodeon as well as film studios in the hands of the Ellison family. According to Forbes, post-merger, David Ellison has 50% voting rights in Paramount, and his father has 27.5%; however, Larry Ellison controls the Ellison family’s 26% equity interest tied to those voting shares as well as at least 10% more with no voting rights. Further, the family owns a 6.7% equity stake through Skydance. “From a voting standpoint, David Ellison will be in control through his entities, but the taxable benefits will flow to Larry,” Alex Davis, a mergers and acquisitions attorney, told Forbes. “His profitable businesses could benefit from any kind of taxable losses or depreciation with this business.”
- Since the merger, the Ellisons have overhauled CBS in service of Trump and Israel. For example, Stephen Colbert’s late-night CBS talk show, The Late Show, was notified it was being cancelled the same week that Colbert criticized Paramount’s settlement of the “60 Minutes” lawsuit with Trump. Also, David Ellison installed Bari Weiss, a self-described “Zionist fanatic” with no TV news experience, as editor-in-chief of CBS. Her leadership has seen her completely destroy “60 Minutes.” Steve Kroft, a former “60 Minutes” correspondent for 30 years, told Variety magazine: “Everything she’s touched has turned to shit. Everything she’s touched has gone colossally wrong. And I don’t think she’s showed any talent for this position. She’s only fulfilling other people’s agendas.”
- In June 2026, the Department of Justice blessed the $111 billion merger between Paramount-Skydance and Warner Brothers Discovery, moving the Ellison family one step closer to amassing a media conglomerate that includes CNN, HBO, the Warner Bros. movie studio, and a large portfolio of other major entertainment brands. The Ellison family’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery would allow them to further embed their pro-Trump and pro-Israel biases in mainstream media. According to the Wall Street Journal, Larry Ellison told Trump that CNN would be overhauled if the merger goes through, although a Paramount spokesperson denied that such a commitment was made.
- In December 2025, TikTok agreed to hand over a 45% ownership stake in its U.S. operations to Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and MGX, a UAE-backed investment firm. The deal, which closed in January 2026, was brokered by Trump and came after months of mounting pressure from the White House. This was a big win for Ellison, adding to his family’s growing empire of media and entertainment, and for Zionists who have long called for a crackdown on content exposing Israel’s actions against Palestinians. Ellison’s pal, Netanyahu, described the sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations as “the most important purchase happening” and said that he “hope[s] it goes through because it can be consequential.” Days after Oracle acquired TikTok, the account of Emmy Award-winning Palestinian journalist, Bisan Owda, which had 1.4 million followers, was permanently banned. Access to Owda’s account was then quickly restored—but restricted—following public backlash against TikTok.
For more information, see the Revolving Door Project’s Oligarchs in Trump World tracker.