Larry Ellison is the American co-founder of Oracle Corporation, the database-software giant he built from a $2,000 start-up in 1977 into one of the world’s most valuable technology companies. Chairman and chief technology officer — and still Oracle’s driving force past 80 — he briefly stood at the very top of the world’s rich lists during an extraordinary surge in Oracle’s shares in 2025.
| Full Name | Lawrence Joseph Ellison |
| Born | 17 August 1944, New York City, USA |
| Age | 82 (as of 2026) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur; co-founder, chairman and CTO of Oracle |
| Known For | Oracle Corporation |
| Net Worth (est.) | About $192 billion (Forbes est., 2025) |
Early Life: Adopted in Chicago
Ellison was born in New York City to Florence Spellman, an unmarried 19-year-old, who gave him up for adoption at nine months when he contracted pneumonia. He was raised in a lower-middle-class Jewish household on Chicago’s South Side by Lillian and Louis Ellison; he learned he was adopted only at twelve. A bright but distractible student, he attended the University of Illinois but left after his second year, when his adoptive mother died, then spent one term at the University of Chicago without graduating. In his early twenties he drove west to California and taught himself computing while working a string of jobs, including programming for the electronics firm Ampex — where he worked on a database project codenamed ‘Oracle’ for the CIA.
Founding Oracle in 1977
In 1977 Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates founded Software Development Laboratories with $2,000 of capital — $1,200 of it Ellison’s — to commercialise the relational-database idea described in an IBM research paper by Edgar F. Codd. Renamed Oracle, the company sold the first commercial SQL relational database, went public in 1986, and nearly died in 1990 after an accounting scandal forced restatements and mass layoffs. Ellison restructured it personally, and through the 1990s Oracle became the default database of global business, making him a billionaire and one of Silicon Valley’s most combative personalities.
The Acquisition Machine and the AI Surge
Ellison stepped down as CEO in 2014 but kept strategy firmly in hand as chairman and CTO. Oracle grew by conquest — the hostile $10.3 billion takeover of PeopleSoft in 2005, Sun Microsystems (and with it Java) in 2010, and health-records giant Cerner in 2022. Long written off in cloud computing, Oracle repositioned its cloud business for the AI era, and in September 2025 stunned Wall Street by reporting a contract backlog of roughly $455 billion; the shares jumped by more than a third in a day, and real-time rich lists briefly valued Ellison above $380 billion — for a few hours making him, on paper, the world’s richest person. He has also been a major Tesla shareholder and served on its board from 2018 to 2022.
Larry Ellison Net Worth
Forbes estimated Ellison’s net worth at about $192 billion on its 2025 list, based on his stake of roughly 40 per cent of Oracle. No major fortune on Earth is more visibly hostage to one share price: the single September 2025 trading session added on the order of $100 billion to his paper wealth at its intraday peak. Forbes and Bloomberg figures are recalculated from market prices, so treat any number as a dated snapshot — by the time you read this, Oracle’s shares will have moved it again.
Personal Life and Family
Ellison has married several times; his two best-known children come from his marriage to Barbara Boothe — David Ellison, founder of Skydance Media, who engineered the 2025 takeover of Paramount, and Megan Ellison, founder of Annapurna Pictures. A lifelong competitor, he races yachts at the highest level: his BMW Oracle Racing team won the America’s Cup in 2010 and 2013. In 2012 he bought about 98 per cent of Lānaʻi, Hawaii’s sixth-largest island, for a reported $300 million, and has since invested heavily in its resorts, farms and infrastructure, spending much of his time there.
Frequently Asked Questions
How old is Larry Ellison?
He was born on 17 August 1944, making him 82 years old in 2026.
What is Larry Ellison’s net worth?
Forbes estimated about $192 billion in 2025 from his roughly 40 per cent Oracle stake; real-time trackers briefly put him far higher during Oracle’s September 2025 share surge.
When did Larry Ellison found Oracle?
In 1977, as Software Development Laboratories, with Bob Miner and Ed Oates and $2,000 of start-up capital.
Which Hawaiian island does Larry Ellison own?
He bought about 98 per cent of Lānaʻi in 2012 for a reported $300 million.
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Net worth and salary figures are estimates based on publicly available sources and may change over time.
