Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison is a businessman from the USA, founder, and chairman of Oracle Corporation.

Biography

• 17 August 1944 – was born in New York. His mother, Florence Spellman, an immigrant Jew, was unmarried; his father served in the US Army.
• 1945 – mother gave Larry to her aunt, Lilia Spellman, and her husband, Lewis Ellison, who lived in Chicago.
• Larry Ellison’s education includes time at the Universities of Illinois and Chicago, but he didn`t graduate.
• 1966 – settled in Berkeley.

Career

• 1967 – He got a job at an employment agency. Later, he worked at Wells Fargo & Company and then at Amdahl Corporation.
• 1973 – joined Ampex and worked on a database project for the CIA, codenamed Oracle.
• Larry Ellison’s Oracle connection began in 1977 when he co-founded the company.
• 1980 – first company`s profit of $1 million.
• 1982 – The corporation changed its name to Oracle Corporation.
• 1986 – IPO on NASDAQ.
• 1991 – Sales dropped by 80%, and creditors threatened the company with bankruptcy.
• 1992 – Mass layoffs, replacement of top management.
• 1995 – The company returns to growth thanks to the dot-com boom.
• 2000s – Oracle actively developed cloud computing and introduced integrated business applications.
• 2014 – remains Chairman of the Board of Directors and CTO.

Wealth

• 2000 – his fortune reached $48 billion before the dot-com crash.
• 2009 – owned the Indian Wells tennis tournament.
• 2012 – salary is $94.6 million. Ranked 3rd in the Forbes list with a fortune of $41 billion.
• 2012 – the billionaire acquired 98% of the island of Lanai.
• 2019 – reduced salary to $1.6 million.
• 2021 – overtook Larry Page and Sergey Brin to become the 5th highest earner in the Forbes ranking.
• 2022 – remained in 5th place on the list of the world’s wealthiest people, with a net worth of $135.7 billion.

Larry Ellison’s net worth in 2024 is estimated to be over $130 billion, placing him among the wealthiest people globally.

In addition to Oracle, Ellison invests in promising technology companies:

• NetSuite – cloud software (acquired by Oracle in 2016 for $9.3bn).
• Leapfrog Enterprises – development of educational solutions.
• Tesla – 1.75% share, member of the board of directors.

In Larry Ellison’s 2024 updates, he invests in AI, real estate, and healthcare ventures.

Charity

Ellison received 4 out of 5 points in the Philanthropic Index, behind only Gates, Buffett, Bloomberg, and Zuckerberg. His key areas of support are medicine and science:

• In 1997, he founded the Ellison Medical Foundation.
• In 2006, he donated $115 million to Harvard.
• 2010, he donated $1 million to support Haiti’s earthquake victims.
• $200 million to the Cancer Centre at the University of Southern California.
• Actively funds research into the hormone DHEA.

2010 — joined the Giving Pledge initiative and pledged to donate 95% of his fortune to charity.

Family

• 1967-1974 – married to Ada Quinn.
• 1977-1978 – married Nancy Wheeler.
• 1983-1986 – married to Barbara Boothe, with whom he had two children: a son, David Ellison, and a daughter, Megan Ellison, who later became a famous Hollywood producer.
• 2003 – married Melanie Craft.

Throughout his career, Larry Ellison’s wife has often remained out of the public eye.

Scandals

Oracle’s acquisition of Pillar Data Systems, a company controlled by Larry Ellison, drew criticism from shareholders. They accused Oracle’s founder of using the company’s resources for his benefit.

Shareholders argued that the deal was primarily beneficial to Ellison, not Oracle. In particular, Ellison initially converted $544 million into Pillar’s preferred shares and later canceled the conversion, securing the right to a portion of the company’s profits until 2014, which was of particular concern.

Instead, Oracle’s board of directors defended Ellison, stressing that the postponement of the payment for the acquisition of Pillar was evidence of a lack of personal interest in the deal.