Oracle Chairman and founder Larry Ellison has canceled the plan to sell as many as 50 million shares of the technology company, ending a potential $7.5 billion divestment just a day after it was disclosed.
Oracle said in an official statement that no shares had been sold under the trading plan and that Ellison had no other plans to sell his Oracle stock. It stated in the official statement,” Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL) today announced that Larry Ellison, Executive Chair of the Board and Chief Technology Officer, has cancelled his 10b5-1 Plan to sell Oracle stock. No Oracle stock was sold under that plan, and he has no other plans to sell any of his Oracle stock.”
The shares were worth about $8.75 billion when the plan was adopted on June 22. Oracle’s stock has since fallen about 16%, bringing the value of the proposed sale to roughly $7.5 billion based on Friday’s closing price of $150. Ellison remains Oracle’s largest individual shareholder and controls about 40% of the company.
Bloomberg reported that Ellison had sought to sell the shares through a trading program that would have allowed him to sell as many as 50 million shares through October 24. The decision to cancel the plan comes as Oracle faces growing investor concerns over its heavy spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Oracle faces pressure over AI spending
Oracle has been spending heavily to expand its cloud and data centre business as demand for computing capacity from artificial intelligence companies continues to grow.
The company has emerged as a major infrastructure partner for OpenAI, with Oracle agreeing in September to provide about $300 billion in capacity to the AI company. The agreement is part of Oracle’s push to build data centres and benefit from the rapid growth in AI.
Investors have become increasingly concerned about the financial impact of the spending. Oracle has also started cutting thousands of jobs as it looks to conserve cash. The company disclosed on Friday that it now expects to spend about $2.8 billion on workforce reductions. The estimate is $700 million higher than its earlier projection.
The layoffs come after Oracle spent about $2.1 billion on severance costs during the previous fiscal year, when tens of thousands of employees were laid off.
Ellison’s decision to abandon the planned share sale could help ease some investor concerns about the company’s finances. The move also signals that the billionaire does not currently intend to reduce his substantial ownership of Oracle.
Ellison’s financial commitments
The planned Oracle share sale had also attracted attention because of Ellison’s large financial commitments outside the technology company.
The Financial Times reported that Ellison has been a major financial backer of his son David Ellison’s business activities, including Paramount Skydance’s proposed $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros Discovery.
Ellison agreed in December to personally backstop $40 billion of equity financing for his son’s hostile bid for Warner Bros Discovery. Paramount Skydance has since agreed to freeze the proposed merger until as late as June next year as a dozen US states seek to block the deal on antitrust grounds.
Ellison is also funding research and technology projects, including the Ellison Institute of Technology in Oxford and the Ellison Medical Institute in Los Angeles.
The Financial Times reported that, as of September 2025, Ellison had pledged 346 million Oracle shares as collateral for personal loans, according to Oracle’s most recent proxy filing.
Ellison remains central to Oracle
Ellison has remained closely involved in Oracle’s transformation despite no longer appearing on recent company earnings calls. He had been a familiar presence on Oracle calls for decades.
People close to Ellison told the Financial Times that he remained “super active” in the company’s day-to-day decision-making.
His role has become particularly important as Oracle shifts from being primarily known for its database software to becoming a major provider of cloud and AI infrastructure.
Ellison was also closely associated with the launch of Stargate, the AI infrastructure project unveiled in early 2025 by OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle. He appeared at the White House alongside OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son when the companies announced plans for the project, initially valued at $500 billion.
Stargate has since evolved into a series of bilateral deals. Oracle’s planned expansion for OpenAI has faced permitting and regulatory hurdles, creating further challenges as the company works to build the infrastructure required to meet AI demand.
Ellison’s decision not to sell the 50 million Oracle shares leaves his roughly 40% ownership position intact. Oracle now faces the task of convincing investors that its massive AI investments can generate enough future growth to justify the debt, spending and pressure on margins.
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