Larry Ellison canceled plans to sell $7.5 billion in Oracle stock a day after it was made public

Larry Ellison cancels plan: $7.5 billion of Oracle shares not available

Just a day after the plan was made public, Larry Ellison terminated a plan that would have allowed him to inject as much as $7.5 billion of Oracle shares into the market. Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL) announced on Saturday that its co-founders will not sell any shares under the agreement. Earlier, the Austin, Texas-based company disclosed that Larry had received approval to sell up to 50 million Oracle shares by the end of October.

Oracle said in a statement: "No Oracle shares are sold under this plan, and he has no other plans to sell his Oracle shares." However, the company did not explain the specific reasons for this reversal.

According to Oracle's latest quarterly documents, the plan was formulated in late June this year. With Oracle closing at $150 a share on Friday, the value of all shares covered by the plan is approximately $7.5 billion.

Ellison withdraws sales as Oracle's artificial intelligence costs continue to climb

The abandoned auction came shortly after Oracle announced on Thursday that revenue performance in its data center division improved. Still, stock prices have fallen slightly since investors began analyzing margins, as Oracle invested heavily in artificial intelligence infrastructure, which narrowed margins.

Currently, Oracle's share price is down 50% from its level in September this year, when the company announced a $300 billion partnership with OpenAI. According to people familiar with the matter, Ellison has a specific view on the stock. The person declined to say whether Ellison planned to make additional purchases of Oracle shares in the next few months.

Larry currently owns 40% of Oracle and is the company's largest single shareholder. According to the company's latest proxy statement, as of September 2025, he has pledged 346 million shares of Oracle stock to secure his personal loans. His funds also involve projects outside Oracle.

Larry is actively involved in a number of major investments related to his family's growing interests in the U.S. media arena. In December, he agreed to personally support his son David Ellison's hostile takeover offer for Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ: WBD), providing $40 billion in equity financing.

David's Paramount Skydance (NASDAQ: PSKY) has agreed to suspend the proposed deal until June next year at the latest, while 12 U.S. states try to block the deal on antitrust grounds. Larry is also funding multiple research projects, including the Ellison Institute for Technology in Oxford and the Ellison Institute for Medical Research in Los Angeles.

At the same time, Oracle, which he founded nearly half a century ago, is reorganizing around artificial intelligence companies 'massive demand for data center space and computing power.

Oracle borrows money, layoffs and strives to promote OpenAI infrastructure

Although he was active for decades as the company's most iconic figure, Larry did not participate in Oracle's recent earnings conference call. According to people close to him, he remains "highly active" in daily decision-making. Larry has been actively promoting the artificial intelligence data center business built by Oracle, which is also a key factor that allows him to temporarily surpass Elon Musk on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. According to the index, Larry's wealth is US$204 billion, ranking seventh in the world.

However, Oracle's collaboration with OpenAI has not progressed smoothly, with several licensing and regulatory issues. Oracle had to borrow huge sums of money and issue new shares to fund these projects. [TAG

Cost pressures also manifest themselves in other ways. Oracle has made mass layoffs. On Friday, the company said it would set aside $700 million for severance payments over the next year. In the previous fiscal year, the company had spent $2.1 billion on severance payments, when tens of thousands of employees were laid off.

Jim Cramer focused on Oracle's financial data during the "Mad Money" program broadcast on September 11, 2026. He pointed out that the key indicator on the balance sheet for the first quarter was the company's backlog of contract revenue.

"We're talking about approximately $332 billion in contract business. Two years ago, this backlog of orders was only $99 billion. The scale of opportunities here has changed dramatically,"Jim said.

After a quarter of observation, Jim's attitude towards Oracle is more positive than in the long run. He described the earnings call as calm and normal, noting that Oracle was adding capacity, collecting customer payments and keeping current planned spending forecasts within a reasonable range.