Larry Ellison cancels plan to sell $7.5bn of Oracle stock

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison has cancelled a planned share sale that would have seen him offload up to $7.5 billion of the company's stock.

The announcement came on Saturday, 12 September 2026, just one day after the trading plan was first made public in a regulatory filing. No shares were sold under the arrangement, which was established on 22 June and had been scheduled to run until 24 October. Oracle stated that the 82-year-old executive chairman has no other plans to sell his shares.

The sudden reversal comes at a turbulent moment for Oracle and for Ellison's personal fortune, which is heavily tied to the company's performance. Ellison remains Oracle’s largest shareholder, owning between 38% and 40% of the firm.

Why did Larry Ellison cancel his Oracle stock sale?

Oracle did not give an explanation for the cancellation. Executives regularly use pre-arranged trading plans, known as Rule 10b5-1 plans, to sell shares at set times to avoid insider trading allegations. While these plans can legally be terminated or altered, cancelling one immediately after its public disclosure is highly unusual.

The decision followed a difficult period for Oracle’s stock. Although the company reported first-quarter earnings last week that beat analyst expectations, its shares fell 5.7% on the morning of Monday, 14 September.

Oracle's stock has fallen more than 20% since the start of the year, driven by investor anxiety over the massive capital expenditure required for the company's transition into artificial intelligence.

How much is Larry Ellison worth now?

Because Ellison's wealth is largely concentrated in Oracle shares, his net worth has fluctuated wildly alongside the company's stock price.

In September 2025, an AI-fuelled surge in tech valuations briefly pushed Ellison’s net worth past $400 billion, according to Forbes, making him only the second person in history to cross that mark.

One year later, that valuation had halved. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index valued Ellison’s net worth at $204 billion on 13 September 2026, placing him seventh on the list of the world's richest people.

What is happening to Oracle's stock?

The tech giant is in the middle of a costly transition from legacy software vendor to AI infrastructure provider.

While the shift has driven cloud infrastructure revenue up by 121%, it has come at a steep price. Oracle's first-quarter fiscal 2027 results showed capital expenditures of $28 billion in a single quarter, resulting in a negative free cash flow of $5 billion. To manage the cash burn, the company completed a $20 billion equity issuance.

At the same time, Oracle announced that its restructuring costs, which include an unspecified number of job cuts, will rise by approximately $700 million. Chief Financial Officer Hilary Maxson told analysts that the new infrastructure projects would eventually deliver strong cash flow, but she declined to name a date for when the company expects to return to positive free cash flow.