From Database Pioneer to World's Richest: How Larry Ellison Conquered an AI Era at 81

When Oracle’s stock surged over 40% on a single day in September 2025, an 81-year-old man cemented his place atop the world’s wealth rankings. Larry Ellison, whose net worth peaked at $393 billion, finally claimed the title of world’s richest person—a position many thought had been permanently settled. But this wasn’t luck; it was the culmination of five decades of calculated vision, relentless ambition, and an uncanny ability to anticipate where technology was heading.

The Unlikely Beginning: From Orphan to Tech Pioneer

Ellison’s journey reads like a Silicon Valley origin myth, except it’s real. Born in 1944 to an unmarried 19-year-old mother in the Bronx, he was adopted by his aunt’s family in Chicago at nine months old. His adoptive father was a government clerk struggling to make ends meet. While Ellison attended the University of Illinois, his adoptive mother’s death during his sophomore year disrupted his education. He tried again at the University of Chicago, but dropped out after one semester.

What he lacked in formal credentials, he compensated for with relentless movement. After years drifting through American cities, Ellison landed in Berkeley, California in the early 1970s. The counterculture hub and nascent tech scene intrigued him—people there “seemed freer and smarter,” he would later recall.

The Oracle Moment: Seeing Gold Where Others Saw Code

The turning point came at Ampex Corporation, a data storage firm where Ellison worked as a programmer. His real breakthrough wasn’t inventing database technology; it was recognizing its commercial potential when nobody else did. He participated in designing a database system for the CIA—a project code-named “Oracle.” While others saw it as a one-off government contract, Ellison saw a global market.

In 1977, with $2,000 in startup capital (Ellison contributed $1,200), he and two colleagues—Bob Miner and Ed Oates—founded Software Development Laboratories. They built a commercial relational database system and named it after the CIA project. Oracle went public in 1986 and became the enterprise software juggernaut that would define Ellison’s life.

For over four decades, Ellison held nearly every executive position at Oracle. As president, chairman, and later CEO, his combative personality and competitive drive shaped the company’s aggressive expansion. Even a near-fatal surfing accident in 1992 didn’t slow him down; he returned two years later more focused than ever. He stepped down as CEO in 2014 but remains Executive Chairman and Chief Technology Officer—still pulling strings after 48 years.

The AI Rebound: Why a Late Entry Became a Winning Position

Here’s where Ellison’s story becomes almost poetic. During the cloud computing boom of the 2000s and 2010s, Oracle looked like a dinosaur compared to Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure. Critics declared the database king obsolete.

Then came artificial intelligence.

In 2025, Oracle signed a $300 billion, five-year partnership with OpenAI. The company announced simultaneous massive investments in AI data centers and infrastructure—precisely what the generative AI boom demands. Oracle’s database expertise suddenly became foundational technology for the AI economy. The market’s enthusiasm was immediate: Oracle stock soared 40% in one day, its largest single-day gain since 1992.

The irony is delicious. The company that seemed left behind in one technological wave became essential to another. Ellison didn’t invent AI, but he positioned Oracle as one of its core infrastructure providers—exactly as he had done with databases decades earlier.

Building a Dynasty: Technology Meets Hollywood

Wealth for Ellison has never been purely personal. His son David acquired Paramount Global—owner of CBS and MTV—for $8 billion, with $6 billion coming from family coffers. The move signaled the Ellison family’s expansion from Silicon Valley into Hollywood, creating a media-technology empire spanning two generations.

Ellison’s political influence has grown proportionally to his wealth. A longtime Republican donor, he financed Marco Rubio’s 2015 presidential campaign and donated $15 million to Tim Scott’s Super PAC in 2022. Most notably, in January 2025, he appeared at the White House with SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son and OpenAI’s Sam Altman to announce a $500 billion AI data center network. Oracle’s technology forms the backbone—a marriage of commerce and political proximity.

The Paradox: Luxury and Discipline, Adventure and Control

At 81, Ellison embodies contradictions. He owns nearly the entire Hawaiian island of Lanai, multiple California mansions, and yachts ranked among the world’s finest. Yet he maintains an almost ascetic personal discipline. Former executives noted he spent hours daily exercising during the 1990s and 2000s, consuming only water and green tea, maintaining a strict diet. He’s described as looking “20 years younger than his peers.”

His passion for water and wind borders on obsessive. Despite nearly drowning while surfing in 1992, he channeled that thrill into sailing, supporting Oracle Team USA’s dramatic America’s Cup comeback in 2013. In 2018, he founded SailGP, a high-speed catamaran racing league that now counts actress Anne Hathaway and footballer Kylian Mbappé among its investors. He revitalized tennis through Indian Wells, which he branded the “fifth Grand Slam.”

Sports, for Ellison, isn’t mere recreation—it’s his fountain of youth and his competitive laboratory.

Marriage, Romance, and Jolin Zhu: The Fifth Chapter

In 2024, the world discovered that Larry Ellison had quietly married Jolin Zhu, a Chinese-American woman 47 years his junior. The news emerged from a University of Michigan donation document mentioning “Larry Ellison and his wife, Jolin.” Born in Shenyang, China, Zhu graduated from the University of Michigan.

This is Ellison’s fifth marriage—a statistic that captures both his restlessness and his romantic appetite. Internet commentators joked that Ellison loves both surfing and dating with equal passion. For someone who sees no reason to age like his peers, marriage to someone significantly younger seems almost inevitable.

The marriage scandal briefly dominated headlines, but for Ellison, it’s simply another chapter in a life that refuses convention.

Philanthropy on His Own Terms

In 2010, Ellison signed the Giving Pledge, committing to donate 95% of his wealth. Unlike Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, however, he rarely participates in collaborative philanthropy. According to a New York Times interview, he “cherishes solitude and refuses to be influenced by outside ideas.”

His giving reflects this philosophy. A $200 million donation to USC established a cancer research center. Recently, he announced funding for the Ellison Institute of Technology, a joint venture with Oxford University focused on healthcare, food systems, and climate solutions. His social media message was characteristically ambitious: “We will design a new generation of lifesaving drugs, build low-cost agricultural systems, and develop efficient and clean energy.”

Ellison’s philanthropy is deeply personal, not performative—a direct reflection of his ideas rather than consensus priorities.

The Unfinished Story

At 81, Larry Ellison achieved what seemed improbable just months earlier: the world’s wealthiest person title. His ascent from an abandoned orphan to Silicon Valley’s most powerful figure follows a consistent pattern: identify emerging technology, commit entirely, outlast the competition, then pivot to the next wave before others see it coming.

He began with a CIA database project, built a $200 billion company, missed the cloud computing wave, then perfectly timed the AI infrastructure boom. He’s married five times, owns islands, races yachts, funded sports leagues, and now directs global AI infrastructure. He refuses to retire, refuses to act his age, and refuses to follow anyone else’s script.

The world’s richest man title may rotate again. But for now, Larry Ellison has proven that in an era where artificial intelligence is reshaping civilization, the old guard of technology pioneers still possesses the vision and ruthlessness to dominate. His story isn’t finished—it’s merely entering its most consequential chapter.