## Larry Ellison Today: How the 81-Year-Old Achieved the Title of the Richest Man in the World in the AI Era

September 10, 2025 marks a pivotal date for global technology. Larry Ellison, at 81 years old, not only became the richest man in the world but also proved that the giants of old Silicon Valley still know how to adapt. His net worth has reached $393 billion, surpassing Elon Musk's (385 billion). It wasn't just a simple accumulation of wealth: it was a strategic comeback.

What caused this spectacular leap? Oracle announced contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the quarter, including a five-year collaboration of $300 billion with OpenAI. The market reacted immediately: shares soared over 40% in a single day, the biggest move since 1992. Ellison understood what many others are still trying to grasp: in the era of generative artificial intelligence, infrastructure is the new gold.

### From a broke programmer to an empire builder

Ellison's story isn't one of the usual Silicon Valley fairy tales. Born in 1944 in the Bronx to a 19-year-old mother, he was abandoned to his aunt in Chicago when he was nine months old. His adoptive father was a simple state employee. When he was admitted to the University of Illinois, he dropped out during his second year after his mother's death. He didn't even finish the University of Chicago after just one semester.

In the following years, Ellison wandered across America: freelance programmer in Chicago, then heading to Berkeley by car. "People there seemed freer and smarter," he later recalled. The real transformation came in the early 1970s at Ampex Corporation, where he worked on a project for the CIA: designing an efficient database system, codenamed "Oracle."

In 1977, Ellison and colleagues Bob Miner and Ed Oates invested $2,000 (1,200 from Ellison personally) to found Software Development Laboratories. Their vision: develop a universal commercial database system based on the relational model. They directly named it "Oracle." In 1986, the company joined Nasdaq, becoming a star in the enterprise software sector.

### The strategy that kept Oracle at the top

Ellison wasn't an inventor of revolutionary technologies but something rarer: a visionary capable of understanding the commercial value of innovation and willing to risk everything to conquer the market. For over forty years, he led the company through triumphs and crises. When cloud computing exploded, Oracle seemed to lag behind AWS and Azure. However, Ellison was undeterred.

In 2025, as the market frenzy around AI infrastructure grew, Oracle announced a massive restructuring: thousands of layoffs in traditional hardware and software sectors, massive investments in data centers and AI infrastructure. The strategy was clear: Oracle transformed from a "historic software company" to a "key provider of AI infrastructure." It was a "late comeback" that surprised the market and enriched Ellison by over $100 billion in a single day.

### Family, power, and global vision

Ellison's wealth now extends beyond the individual. His son David acquired Paramount Global for $8 billion, with $6 billion from the family fund. The father dominates technology, the son dominates Hollywood: two generations building an empire that spans technology and media. In January 2025, Ellison appeared at the White House alongside SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to announce the construction of a $500 billion AI data center network.

Politically, Ellison is not shy. He regularly funds the Republican Party and is a major donor: $15 million in 2022 for a senator's Super PAC, and previous funding for presidential campaigns.

### The man: sports, luxury, and discipline

At 81, Ellison appears twenty years younger than his peers. The secret? Extreme discipline. In the 1990s and 2000s, he trained for hours every day: no sugary drinks, only water and green tea, a strict diet. He owns 98% of Lanai Island in Hawaii, villas in California, and some of the most luxurious yachts in the world.

His passion for water is almost instinctive. In 1992, he survived a surfing accident that could have killed him. It didn't stop him at all. Later, he dedicated himself even more intensely to sailing. In 2013, his Oracle Team USA made a historic comeback, winning the America's Cup. In 2018, he founded SailGP, a high-speed catamaran league now supported by investors like actress Anne Hathaway and footballer Mbappé.

Tennis is another great passion: he revived the Indian Wells tournament, now known as the "fifth Slam."

In 2024, Ellison discreetly married Jolin Zhu, a Chinese woman 47 years his junior. The news emerged from a document from the University of Michigan related to a joint donation. According to the South China Morning Post, Jolin was born in Shenyang and graduated from Michigan.

### Philanthropy in his own way

In 2010, Ellison signed the "Giving Pledge," promising to donate at least 95% of his wealth. Unlike Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, he prefers to act alone. "I value solitude and don't want to be influenced by others' ideas," he told the New York Times.

In 2016, he donated $200 million to the University of Southern California for a cancer research center. Recently, he announced that part of his wealth will fund the Ellison Institute of Technology, founded in collaboration with Oxford University, for research in medicine, nutrition, and climate. "We want to design a new generation of life-saving drugs, build low-cost agricultural systems, and develop clean and efficient energies," he wrote on social media.

### Larry Ellison Today: An evolving legend

At 81, Larry Ellison has once again demonstrated why he remains the leading architect of a technological era. He went from a contract with the CIA to a global database empire, and now he has taken a leading position in the explosion of generative AI. Wealth, power, marriages, sports, philanthropy: his life has never been boring.

He is the "rebel" of Silicon Valley: stubborn, combative, never willing to compromise. His rise to the title of the world's richest man is not accidental but the result of a decades-long strategy culminating at the right moment. He may not hold the title for long—billionaires' wealth is volatile—but for now, Ellison has shown that in an era where AI is reshaping everything, the old giants of technology still have a story to tell.