Larry Ellison is a figure at the very centre of today’s digital economy. Oracle’s co-founder and largest shareholder is now credited not only with building one of the world’s key technology companies, but with direct influence over how internet infrastructure, government services and global media platforms work.
His fortune is tied almost entirely to Oracle shares and swings with them. In September 2025, according to Bloomberg, it briefly came close to $400 billion; by early November 2026, after the shares fell, Forbes put it at roughly $150–160 billion, and Ellison dropped out of the world’s ten richest people. But something else matters far more: for decades Oracle has controlled critical information systems in the private sector and the US government, and in 2026 it took a stake in American TikTok and now holds its users’ data.
This is a story about how Ellison came to hold such power, what the Oracle empire actually is, and where concentrating data in the hands of a private corporation might lead.
From a CIA project to the founding of Oracle
Oracle’s story began in the 1970s, when Ellison was working on data-processing projects for defence contractors. One of the key early projects was a CIA assignment codenamed Oracle. The idea of the relational database was only just emerging, and it was this technology that became the foundation of the future giant.
IBM was the first to build a working prototype of such a system and described it in detail in its documentation. Ellison and his team used that published method as a basis, built their own commercial product and brought it to market in 1979, ahead of IBM itself.
A free academic idea became the engine of what would later grow into a multibillion-dollar business.
Oracle’s success came not only from the technology, but from Ellison’s talent for selling solutions, creating demand and locking customers into an ecosystem that is hard to leave.
Why Oracle became the world’s “digital landlord”
Oracle built a model that made it indispensable:
- relational databases able to store millions of tables and handle thousands of transactions per second;
- its own data centres;
- closed proprietary solutions that are extremely hard to give up.
Today Oracle’s products are used by the world’s largest banks, and its clients include UnitedHealth, Citibank, the biggest corporations in the S&P 500 and a host of government bodies.
For companies and government agencies, switching to another technology would mean years of heavy spending, a complete database migration and a rebuild of internal systems. In practice, an almost impossible task.
That is why experts say:
Oracle is not a vendor. Oracle is infrastructure.
Government contracts and a role in surveillance
From the start of his career Ellison worked with the defence sector, and that link has lasted for decades.
Today Oracle provides:
- analytics and information systems for US agencies;
- software for law enforcement and security services;
- cloud infrastructure for government agencies.
The company has become a key software supplier to government departments and intelligence services, including current contracts with the CIA and the Pentagon.
Oracle builds the “plumbing” for data — vast data stores and tools for extracting information, without which modern government would simply grind to a halt.
In September 2024, at a meeting with analysts, Ellison described where this could go: AI running on Oracle’s infrastructure, constantly analysing footage from police body cameras, traffic cameras and street CCTV.
The world’s dependence on data processing
Every second, trillions of new pieces of data are created on the internet.
Every purchase, every click, every view is a data point that gets stored and analysed.
Oracle’s relational databases make it possible to:
- process endless volumes of information,
- spot patterns,
- build analytical models of behaviour,
- keep banks, insurers, telecoms, social networks and public services running.
The modern advertising system runs on this foundation too — personalised ads, precise targeting, recommendation algorithms.
Oracle is one of the pillars of this ecosystem.
Expansion through acquisitions
In the 2000s the company moved to aggressively buying up competitors and adjacent technology businesses.
Its major purchases include Sun Microsystems (the deal closed in January 2010) and dozens of other companies.
This strategy allowed Oracle to:
- control critical technologies,
- shut competitors out of the market,
- deepen customers’ dependence on its own ecosystem.
Ellison’s ideology and political influence
Ellison became a billionaire in 1993 and has been steadily investing in political organisations ever since.
His interests:
- support for Israel and related organisations;
- funding for think tanks, including the Tony Blair Institute;
- according to investigative reporting, a role in promoting digital identity projects.
The Blair Institute promotes the idea of digital IDs that combine medical data, financial records and other government information into a single system.
Oracle provides the infrastructure such projects could run on.
TikTok, US pressure and a new digital power
American pressure on TikTok was not only about security.
TikTok had become a platform where political moods and information trends often diverge from the interests of the establishment.
To ward off the pressure, TikTok offered to store Americans’ data on Oracle servers in Texas.
But that was not enough.
TikTok’s American business had to be spun off. The deal closed on 22 January 2026, and it now belongs to a joint venture, TikTok USDS Joint Venture:
- Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati fund MGX each took 15%, while ByteDance kept 19.9%;
- Oracle stores American users’ data and is responsible for security;
- the algorithm is reportedly licensed from ByteDance: it is being retrained on American data and kept in Oracle’s cloud.
In effect, one of the most popular social networks among American teenagers (YouTube is the only one ahead of it) runs on the servers of Ellison’s corporation.
A media empire and influence over public opinion
Meanwhile, the Ellison family is expanding its influence in traditional media:
- Larry’s son, David Ellison, has taken charge of Paramount Skydance, which owns CBS;
- on 6 October 2026 the company completed its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery for around $81 billion and is now called Skydance;
- CNN came with Warner Bros. Discovery, so CBS and CNN now belong to the same company.
This reinforces a trend: media platforms, social networks and government data storage are gradually concentrating in the hands of a narrow circle of tech magnates.
What this means for the future
1. Infrastructure concentrated in one pair of hands
Oracle already serves:
- the largest banks,
- governments,
- Fortune 500 corporations.
A stake in TikTok and government contracts effectively make Ellison the “digital master” of a key part of American infrastructure.
2. The state’s dependence on private business
Once integrated into Oracle’s systems, the state can hardly walk away from the corporation’s services — the cost of migration is prohibitive.
3. Commercial, political and media interests merging
Technology infrastructure, political connections, the media and social networks form a single web of influence.
The big question
Technological progress is the foundation of modern society.
But when critical infrastructure, the data of millions of citizens and media platforms are concentrated in the hands of one private entity, a question arises:
what will drive decisions — the public interest or pure profit?
The story of Oracle and Ellison is not the story of one billionaire.
It is the story of how data became the new oil, how digital infrastructure became the basis of power — and how the future of the internet is being shaped not by states but by corporations.
How, a century earlier, ordinary people gained access to the stock market — the history of mutual funds.
Why this story matters now
Control over data gives an advantage only together with the infrastructure, standards and ecosystem around it. For companies, this is a reminder: the value of data is defined not by its volume, but by how quickly and safely it can be turned into a decision.
