Larry Ellison Cancels $7.5 Billion Oracle Share Sale Plan

Oracle is remaking itself from a database software company into a major provider of cloud infrastructure for artificial intelligence. Fiscal first-quarter revenue, reported on Sept. 10, rose 30% to $19.35 billion, while cloud infrastructure sales surged 121%. The expansion is costly, however: Oracle expects fiscal 2027 capital spending of $90 billion to $95 billion, intensifying investor scrutiny of its debt, cash burn and narrowing margins.

A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed on Sept. 11 showed that founder Larry Ellison had adopted a Rule 10b5-1 plan on June 22 to sell as many as 50 million Oracle shares by Oct. 24. The stake was worth about $7.5 billion at Oracle’s Sept. 11 closing price of $150. Oracle said on Sept. 12 that Ellison had cancelled the plan; no shares were sold under it, and he had no other plans to dispose of Oracle stock.