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Larry Ellison is the chairman, chief technology officer, and co-founder of Oracle, a software magnate, of which he owns about 35.4 percent, and has a net worth of $91.2 billion as of March 2021.
Larry Ellison was born to an unmarried Jewish mother in New York City. His biological father served in the United States Army Air Corps as an Italian-American pilot. Ellison's mother gave him to her aunt and uncle for adoption after he contracted pneumonia at the age of nine months. He didn't see his biological mother until he was 48 years old. Despite the fact that he was raised in a Reform Jewish home by adoptive parents who frequently attended synagogue, Ellison remained a religious skeptic. At age thirteen, Ellison refused to have a bar mitzvah celebration.
Ellison attended Chicago's South Shore High School before enrolling as a premed student at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. There, he was named science student of the year, but after his sophomore year, he dropped out without taking his final exams because his adoptive mother had recently died. He studied physics and mathematics at the University of Chicago for one term after spending the summer of 1966 in California. He didn't take any exams, and his first experience with computer design was in Chicago. He moved to Berkeley, California in 1966 when he was 22 years old.
Larry Ellison dropped out of two universities in a row and never finished his schooling. Instead, he discovered that he was a software programmer. He spent about ten years as a computer programmer before founding Oracle in 1977, but the company did not take its name until 1983. Originally, it was known as Software Development Laboratories. He was elected Entrepreneur of the Year by Harvard Business School in 1990.
Following a short tenure at Amdahl Corporation, Ellison joined Ampex Corporation in the 1970s. One of his efforts was a database for the CIA that he dubbed "Oracle." "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks," a paper by Edgar F. Codd on relational database systems, inspired Ellison. With two pamphlets, he founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL) in 1977. with two partners and an investment of $2,000; $1,200 of the money was his. The company changed its name to Relational Software Inc. in 1979, and then to Oracle Systems Corporation in 1983, after its flagship product, the Oracle Database. The company’s deal to become a cloud provider for TikTok in the U.S. is still not final.
Ellison acquired a 50% interest in the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament in 2010. Ellison owns a number of high-end automobiles, including an Audi R8 and a McLaren F1. His favorite car is the Acura NSX, which he was known to give away as gifts every year when it was being manufactured. Ellison is said to be the proud owner of a Lexus LFA.
Other than cards, he loved yachts. However, Ellison's ownership of the Rising Sun, the world's 12th largest yacht, came to an end in 2010. David Geffen, a music and film mogul, purchased his remaining shares in the yacht. Rising Sun is 453 feet (138 meters) long and is said to have cost more than $200 million to build. He downsized to Musashi, a Feadship 288-foot (88-metre) yacht.
While little is known about how Ellison spends his billions, he is well-known for his extravagant spending habits. In 2016, he gave the University of Southern California $200 million for a cancer treatment research center. He has amassed a sizable real estate portfolio, which includes a whole island in Hawaii and several parcels in Malibu, California. He has a home for his modern art, a home for his 19th-century art, a home for his French impressionism art, and a home for his Japanese art built on the grounds of Nanzen-ji temple in Japan. His primary residence in Woodside, California, was inspired by a 16th-century Japanese emperor's palace. The $70 million estates were developed over a nine-year period and are spread over 23 acres.
Ellison has been enamored with the Lanai island and when he became a multi-billionaire, he bought it for $300 million. 23 He owns all but 2% of the island, including two Four Seasons resorts, a movie theater, the water company, the majority of the island's utilities, and a large number of houses and apartment buildings. His vision is to transform the island into a self-sufficient, environmentally sustainable holiday destination complete with ultra-luxury hotels and a sustainability laboratory, enabling it to become the world's first economically viable, 100% green city. In 2012, he joined "The Giving Pledge," which included Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and others. In doing so, Ellison promised to donate 95% of his fortune to charity.
SOURCES: CELEBRITY NET WORTH, Investopedia, Forbes
This article was updated on March 13, 2021 by Vanessa Shumbanhete
Earnings & Financial Data
Date |
Category |
Description |
Amount |
---|---|---|---|
2021 |
Earnings |
Oracle Revenue |
$9,800,000,000 |
2020 |
Earnings |
Oracle revenue |
$6,900,000,000 |
2013 |
Sale of Asset |
Value of his Lake Tahoe Estate upon sale (which he acquired for $58 million) |
$20,350,000 |
2012 |
Earnings |
Earnings from option awards |
$76,894,000 |
2012 |
Asset |
Value of his Musashi yacht (which could be as high as $120 million) |
$90,000,000 |
2012 |
Earnings |
Earnings from non-equity incentive plan compensation |
$1,166,000 |
2012 |
Asset |
Value of his Woodside Mansion |
$70,000,000 |
2012 |
Bonus |
Annual bonus from Oracle |
$1,000 |
2012 |
Earnings |
Earnings from other compensations from Oracle |
$1,546,000 |
2012 |
Asset |
Value of his Malibu Home |
$37,000,000 |
2012 |
Asset |
Value of his Lexus LFA |
$445,000 |
2012 |
Salary |
Annual salary from Oracle |
$1,000 |
2011 |
Asset |
Value of his Acura NSX |
$55,000,000 |
2011 |
Asset |
Value of his Citation X medium business jet |
$22,000,000 |
2011 |
Asset |
Value of his real estate assets after acquiring properties in Malibu and 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanai from billionaire David Murdock |
$500,000,000 |
2011 |
Asset |
Value of his Gulfstream V luxury private jet |
$59,000,000 |
2010 |
Asset |
Value of his Porcupine Creek home which he bought from Edra Blixseth |
$43,000,000 |
2010 |
Asset |
Value of his McLaren F1 upon sale |
$3,575,000 |
2009 |
Sale of Asset |
Value of his Rising Sun yacht upon sale (which could be as much as $300 million) |
$200,000,000 |
2009 |
Asset |
Annual salary from Oracle |
$1,000 |
2009 |
Asset |
Value of his Beechwood Mansion |
$10,500,000 |
2008 |
Salary |
Annual salary from Oracle |
$1,000,000 |
2008 |
Earnings |
Earnings he made for the year |
$56,800,000 |
2007 |
Earnings |
Earnings from option awards |
$71,373,000 |
2007 |
Bonus |
Annual bonus from Oracle |
$10,799,000 |
2007 |
Salary |
Annual salary from Oracle |
$100,000 |
2007 |
Asset |
Value of his Audi R8 |
$134,000 |
2006 |
Earnings |
Earnings from option awards |
$50,087,000 |
2006 |
Bonus |
Annual bonus from Oracle |
$8,369,000 |
2006 |
Salary |
Annual salary from Oracle |
$100,000 |
2004 |
Asset |
Value of his Turkey Farm Lane which is currently listed at $19 million |
$23,000,000 |
2004 |
Asset |
Value of his Malibu mansion |
$20,000,000 |
2004 |
Salary |
Annual salary from Oracle |
$975,000 |
2004 |
Earnings |
Earnings from other compensations from Oracle |
$995,100 |
2004 |
Bonus |
Annual bonus from Oracle |
$6,500,000 |
1997 |
Asset |
Value of his San Francisco Home |
$3,900,000 |
1976 |
Asset |
Investment at Software Development Laboratories (SDL), the company he founded with two partners |
$1,200,000 |