Reference News Network, August 7 report - Bloomberg.com website published an article titled "How Larry Ellison Became the World's Second Richest Person" on July 16, authored by Diana Li Hebrody Ford. The full text is as follows:

After dropping out of university, Larry Ellison co-founded a company that eventually became one of the world's largest technology companies. His accumulated wealth placed him among the super-rich and he became the second richest person in the world in July this year.

His success has been accompanied by a documented history of luxurious living. This lifestyle - including a huge yacht, private jet, prime real estate, and the purchase of a Hawaiian island - sometimes caused controversy.

Who is Larry Ellison? What is his net worth?

Ellison is the co-founder and largest shareholder of Oracle, a software giant known for its namesake database, which supports the operations of many large enterprises around the world. Recently, Oracle has achieved success in the competitive cloud infrastructure market, which is dominated by competitors like Amazon.

At the age of 80, Ellison owns over 40% of Oracle, based in Austin, Texas, as well as shares in Tesla, a fleet of yachts, the Indian Wells tennis tournament, and real estate including the Hawaiian island of Lānaʻi.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as of July 15, the net worth of this tech entrepreneur was $25.12 billion, second only to Elon Musk. Most of Ellison's wealth comes from his shares in Oracle.

Benefiting from the AI Development Wave

How did Ellison become rich through Oracle?

Ellison was adopted at the age of nine months by his mother's uncle and aunt and grew up in the south of Chicago. He dropped out of the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago, moved to Berkeley, California, and got a job in computer programming at Ampex, where he developed a database called Oracle for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Ellison founded Oracle with two partners in 1977. The company went public on March 12, 1986, one day after Microsoft's IPO. In September 2014, Ellison stepped down as CEO of Oracle and took the positions of Chairman and Chief Technology Officer.

Oracle has invested billions of dollars in recent years to become a cloud infrastructure provider - offering computing power and storage via the internet. As startups and other artificial intelligence companies seek greater capabilities, this has made the company a beneficiary of the market's enthusiasm for artificial intelligence. Since the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022, Oracle's stock has almost doubled.

When the US government relaxed some restrictions from the Biden era, allowing chip manufacturers such as NVIDIA and AMD to export certain semiconductors to China, Oracle's stock jumped 5.7% on July 15. This decision is expected to ease global chip supply chain tensions, which is a positive sign for Oracle, as it needs to purchase a large number of artificial intelligence chips for its data centers.

The latest increase came during Oracle's explosive growth period, with its stock price surging more than 90% since mid-April due to strong revenue and key artificial intelligence partnerships. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that OpenAI has agreed to rent unprecedented computing power from Oracle to build increasingly powerful artificial intelligence tools.

Closely Associated with Trump

Ellison also benefited from his close relationship with President Trump. For years, Ellison has been a supporter of Trump and a donor to the Republican Party. Since re-taking office in January, Trump has repeatedly elevated Oracle's status to reward Ellison.

Ellison and Oracle were involved in Trump's first promotion in January of a $500 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure project called "Star Gate." Trump also supported Oracle's acquisition of a stake in TikTok's U.S. business, which would allow Oracle to gain a share in one of the world's most popular consumer products.

Over the past decade, he has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in luxury real estate, including properties in Malibu, California, and Rancho Mirage, the Beachwood House in Newport, Rhode Island, and a manor modeled after a 16th-century Japanese feudal castle in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Ellison has been a shareholder of Tesla, and according to the carmaker's 2022 shareholder proxy statement, he held about 1.5% of the company's shares. He left the Tesla board in June 2022, and his shareholding percentage was not disclosed in subsequent shareholder proxy statements. He was also one of the largest external supporters of Musk's acquisition of Twitter.

Luxurious Life and Passionate Investment

This software magnate has a history of luxurious living. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle in January 2006, an accountant had sent an email to the tech founder in 2002 suggesting that Ellison "make a budget and plan," because his spending habits were becoming unsustainable. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, Ellison's lifestyle is maintained through debt, selling Oracle shares, and dividend income, with his income exceeding $1.2 billion since 2003.

This passionate sailor partially funded the BMW Oracle Racing team, which won the America's Cup sailing championship in February 2010. Later that year, he sold his shares in the 138-meter-long mega-yacht "Sunseeker" to billionaire David Geffen. In October 2013, his U.S. Oracle team defeated New Zealand to defend their America's Cup sailing championship title. In 2010, he signed the "Donation Pledge," committing to donate at least 95% of his wealth to charity.

Ellison's love for Hawaii began in his childhood, which led him to spend $300 million in 2012 to purchase 98% of the land on Lānaʻi. There, he co-founded the luxury health resort chain Sensei with David Agus, focusing on longevity. Agus was the doctor of Ellison's late friend Steve Jobs. His personal relationships have brought famous visitors such as Musk, Tom Cruise, and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to this once-sleepy island.

Ellison's supporters say his investments have helped revitalize Lānaʻi, but others complain that the island has become more welcoming to super-rich individuals, while pushing out families who have lived there for generations. (Translated by Wang Haifang)

Larry Ellison (Bloomberg.com)

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