Larry Ellison Dominated 2025: Oracle’s AI Deals, TikTok Ambitions, and Hollywood Financing Take Center Stage

Oracle's co-founder didn't just make headlines in 2025—he owned them. Larry Ellison orchestrated a triple-threat strategy that reshaped tech, media, and finance, proving Silicon Valley's old guard still writes the biggest checks.

The AI Power Play

Oracle cut through the generative AI noise with a series of billion-dollar cloud partnerships, positioning its infrastructure as the silent backbone for the next wave of applications. The deals bypassed flashy consumer fronts, betting instead on the enterprise grind where real revenue gets made.

The Social Media Gambit

Ellison's ambitions for TikTok turned a geopolitical stalemate into a potential acquisition saga. The move wasn't about cute dances—it was a data grab, an attempt to wire a global social graph directly into Oracle's ad and analytics engines. A masterclass in seeing distribution channels as mere data pipelines.

Lights, Camera, Capital

Hollywood financing became the unexpected third act. Oracle's capital flowed into film and streaming projects, a cynical hedge against ad market volatility disguised as content creation. Because when traditional revenue streams look shaky, why not fund a blockbuster? The ultimate flex: using software profits to buy cultural influence.

The 2025 playbook was pure Ellison—aggressive, omnivorous, and relentlessly pragmatic. While crypto bros chased memecoins, he was busy acquiring the digital real estate they'll eventually rent. A reminder that in the high-stakes game of tech dominance, the house always wins.

Oracle builds Stargate and locks in OpenAI as its biggest client

January set the tone. On Jan. 21, one day after Trump’s inauguration, Trump stood at the WHITE House with Larry, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, and SoftBank head Masa Son.

The group announced Stargate, a $500 billion plan to build AI data centers across the US. The announcement included claims of 100,000 jobs and massive long-term investment. Some analysts doubted the numbers from the start.

Oracle moved fast anyway. The company began a large-scale buildout of AI-focused data centers. The spending pushed Oracle’s cash FLOW negative for the first time since the early 1990s. That reversal stood out because Larry had skipped the cloud boom years earlier. In 2025, he leaned into AI instead of watching from the sidelines.

By summer, Oracle landed its biggest deal yet. OpenAI agreed to rent roughly $300 billion worth of computing power from Oracle. The contract positioned OpenAI as Oracle’s largest customer.

In September, Oracle disclosed how large the commitment really was. Investors reacted immediately. Oracle shares jumped almost 36 percent on Sept. 10, the third sharpest rally since the company’s 1986 IPO. The stock hit an intraday record of $345.72.

That single day added $89 billion to Larry’s net worth, lifting it to $388 billion. Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index recorded it as the largest one-day wealth increase ever. For a brief moment, he passed Musk as the richest person alive.

Zachary Lountzis, vice president at Lountzis Asset Management, in an interview, said they are extremely bullish on ORCL. In his words:-

“Our philosophy is that we’re OK with short-term overvaluation if the economics of the business have not changed, and that was the case with Oracle. We didn’t feel the economics of the business changed with all the largely positive news that came out. And I think what we’ve seen from $340 down to $180 is actually a very healthy correction.”

Stock collapse, leadership changes, and pressure on cash follow

The surge in wealth overlapped with a media deal at home. In August, David Ellison, Larry’s son, closed Skydance Media’s takeover of Paramount. The acquisition relied heavily on funding from Ellison Senior, tying Hollywood control to Oracle’s chairman during the same year his tech bets peaked.

Then the slide began. About three months ago, Oracle appointed Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia as co-chief executives, replacing Safra Catz. The timing was rough.

Oracle shares have fallen about 30 percent this quarter. With only days left, the decline is tracking toward the company’s worst quarterly drop since the 2001 dot-com crash.

Two weeks before the leadership handoff, Oracle reported a 359 percent revenue backlog tied largely to the OpenAI agreement.

The deal validated Oracle’s AI push even as the company remained outside Gartner’s top five cloud infrastructure providers for 2024. Oracle still trails Amazon, Microsoft, and Google in market share, despite customers that include Meta, Uber, and Elon Musk’s xAI.

Wells Fargo analyst Michael Turrin initiated coverage this month with a buy equivalent and a $280 target. He said Oracle could change how the market views the business if it delivers on OpenAI.

“They’re kind of shifting away from more of a value oriented business to a more growth oriented business,” Michael said.

Today, Larry ranks as the world’s fifth richest person with just under $250 billion. Most of that wealth sits in Oracle stock. If he were required to provide the full $40.4 billion backstop tied to the OpenAI deal, cash access remains unclear. Meeting that obligation could force him to sell shares or pledge more stock, extending the risk into 2026.