Larry Ellison's Legend of Immortality: From Orphan to Billionaire, the Challenger in the AI Era

On September 2025, local time, 81-year-old Larry Ellison officially topped the global wealth rankings following a surge in stock price. The founder of Oracle, his net worth once soared to $393 billion, claiming the title of the world’s richest person, a crown long held by Elon Musk.

This is not just a numerical breakthrough. For Larry Ellison, this moment carries deeper significance—a complete legend from being abandoned as an orphan to a tech magnate, from missing the cloud computing wave to making a dazzling turnaround in the AI era.

Larry Ellison’s Dark Beginnings and Transformation

Born in the Bronx, New York, in 1944, Larry Ellison’s start was not friendly. Nine months after birth, he was abandoned by his birth mother and adopted by his aunt in Chicago. His adoptive father was an ordinary government worker, and the family was financially strained, but this did not extinguish the fire in Larry Ellison’s heart.

He was admitted to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign but dropped out in his sophomore year after his adoptive mother passed away. He then entered the University of Chicago but left after just one semester. For Larry Ellison, the constraints of traditional education were far less attractive than the outside world.

With a desire for freedom, Larry Ellison wandered across the United States, doing sporadic programming work. Until he drove to Berkeley, California—a place full of counterculture and emerging technology—where he felt true liberation—“People there seemed freer and smarter.”

The opportunity that truly changed Larry Ellison’s life came in the 1970s. While working as a programmer at Ampex Corporation (a tech company engaged in audio-visual storage and data processing), he participated in a secret project: developing a high-efficiency data management and query system for the CIA, codenamed “Oracle.” This project was like a seed, which later blossomed under Larry Ellison’s hands.

From CIA Contract to Database Empire

In 1977, 32-year-old Larry Ellison co-founded Software Development Laboratories with former colleagues Bob Miner and Ed Oates, with an initial capital of $2,000 (Larry Ellison contributed $1,200). The first major decision made by these young men was to leverage their experience and relational data models developed for the CIA to launch a universal commercial database system—directly named “Oracle.”

Larry Ellison was not the inventor of database technology, but he was among the earliest to see its commercial potential and dared to stake everything to develop the market. In 1986, Oracle went public on NASDAQ, becoming a shining star in the enterprise software market.

Under Larry Ellison’s leadership, he almost held every executive position in the company. From 1978 to 1996, he served as CEO; from 1990 to 1992, he served as Chairman for the first time. Even a near-fatal surfing accident in 1992 did not make this rebellious founder retreat. He continued to return to the company, leading again from 1995 to 2005 for another decade. Until stepping down as CEO in 2014, he remained the executive chairman and CTO, guiding the company’s direction.

Over more than forty years, Oracle experienced both glory and downturns. It once dominated the database market but was sluggish during the early days of cloud computing—missing the golden opportunity to compete with Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure. But regardless of ups and downs, Oracle always remained at the core of enterprise software, with Larry Ellison always being the soul of the company.

How Larry Ellison Seized the AI Era After Missing Cloud Computing

If Oracle showed some hesitation during the cloud computing wave, in the new wave of AI technology revolution, Larry Ellison and his company took a very different stance.

In summer 2025, Oracle announced several contracts totaling hundreds of billions of dollars. The most notable was a $300 billion, five-year partnership with OpenAI. Once announced, Oracle’s stock soared over 40% in a single day, marking the largest single-day gain since 1992.

This veteran software vendor, once criticized for slow response during the cloud era, now leverages its deep database expertise and long-term engagement with enterprise clients to become a core infrastructure provider in the explosive era of generative AI.

Larry Ellison keenly perceived the frantic demand for data centers and computing resources in the AI era. He not only increased investment in AI infrastructure at the corporate level but also appeared at the White House in early 2025 with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI founder Sam Altman, announcing plans to build a $500 billion AI data center network. Oracle’s technology will be the backbone of this network.

At this moment, Larry Ellison completed a “belated comeback”—transforming from a cloud computing bystander to a key player in the AI era.

Larry Ellison and the Extension of Family Empire’s Power

Larry Ellison’s wealth has long transcended personal boundaries, weaving into a vast power network at the family level.

His son David Ellison recently acquired Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS and MTV, for $8 billion, with $6 billion supported by the Ellison family funds. This deal marks the Ellison family’s reach into Hollywood, achieving a crossover from tech to media.

In the political arena, Larry Ellison is also a frequent presence. As a long-time supporter and major donor of the Republican Party, he has funded Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign and donated $15 million to the South Carolina Senate candidate Tim Scott’s super PAC in 2022. His announced AI data center plan in January further demonstrates his significant influence in high-level political decision-making.

For Larry Ellison, business empire and political influence are never separate; they reinforce each other.

The Rogue Spirit: Larry Ellison’s Secret to Staying Young

In Larry Ellison, luxury and discipline, adventure and passion coexist perfectly.

He owns 98% of the land on Lanai, multiple mansions in California, and world-class yachts, yet he manages his body with near-ascetic discipline. Former executives mentioned that in the 1990s, Larry Ellison exercised for hours daily, rarely drank sugary drinks, only water and green tea, and maintained strict dietary control. This self-discipline makes him look “twenty years younger than his peers” at 81.

His obsession with water and wind is almost instinctive. The 1992 surfing accident that nearly took his life did not make him give up the sport; instead, it fueled his desire for greater adventure. He then devoted himself to sailing, supporting Oracle Team USA in the 2013 America’s Cup, which staged a legendary comeback to win one of the most iconic revenge battles in sailing history. In 2018, he founded SailGP, a high-speed catamaran racing league, which now attracts investors including actress Anne Hathaway and football star Kylian Mbappé.

Tennis is another passion. He revitalized the Indian Wells tennis tournament in California, calling it the “fifth Grand Slam.”

In his personal life, Larry Ellison has been married four times with frequent rumors. In 2024, he quietly married Chinese-American Jolin Zhu, who is 47 years his junior. This marriage again brought his private life into the public eye. Reports say Jolin Zhu was born in Shenyang, China, and graduated from the University of Michigan.

Some netizens joked that Larry Ellison loves surfing and dating, and for him, both the waves and the love scene are full of attraction. This eternal “playboy” exemplifies what it means to stay forever young.

Larry Ellison’s Independent Philanthropic Dream

In 2010, Larry Ellison signed the “Giving Pledge,” promising to donate at least 95% of his wealth to charity. But unlike Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, he is not keen on participating in group activities with peers.

According to a New York Times interview, Larry Ellison “cherishes solitude and is reluctant to be influenced by external ideas.” His approach to philanthropy is highly personal, preferring to design a future aligned with his own ideas rather than following existing frameworks.

In 2016, he donated $200 million to establish a cancer research center at the University of Southern California. In recent years, he has also partnered with Oxford University to create the Ellison Institute of Technology, investing part of his wealth into research in healthcare, food, and climate. He expressed his vision on social media: “We want to design new life-saving drugs for humanity, build low-cost agricultural systems, and develop efficient clean energy.”

This is Larry Ellison’s style—rejecting conformity, insisting on independent thinking, and using wealth to realize his own vision of the future.

Epilogue: The Eternal Rebel

At 81, Larry Ellison finally ascended to the top of the global wealth list.

Starting from a CIA contract, he built a database empire that dominates the world; after falling behind in the cloud computing wave, he keenly positioned himself in the AI era, completing a shocking “belated comeback.” Wealth, power, sports, marriage, and charity—his life is never short of stories and has never been far from the storm center.

He is the timeless “playboy” of Silicon Valley—stubborn, competitive, and never compromising. The throne of the world’s richest may change hands again someday, but at least for now, Larry Ellison has proven to the world with his full life story: in an era reshaped by AI, the legend of the older generation of tech magnates is far from over.