Displacing Elon Musk to marry his fifth spouse: Larry Ellison's late transformation at 81

At 81 years old, Larry Ellison achieved something few people in the world experience: becoming the richest person on the planet. On September 10, 2025, he marked a historic milestone not only for himself but for the narrative of global wealth, when his fortune reached $393 billion, dethroning the businessman who had held the top spot for years. His rival, the tech billionaire who had dominated headlines over the past decade, lagged behind with just $385 billion. But this late victory is more than just a number on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. It is the culmination of an extraordinary life marked by constant reinventions, successive marriages—most recently marrying his current wife, a woman 47 years his junior—and a virtually superhuman ability to adapt to each wave of technological change that has transformed the sector.

From the Bronx to the Oracle Empire: From Orphan to Silicon Valley Titan

Larry Ellison’s journey began in 1944 in the Bronx, New York, in circumstances that seemed destined for obscurity. Born to a 19-year-old single mother, he was handed over to an aunt in Chicago at nine months old to be raised in a household with financial difficulties. His adoptive father was a regular public servant, and resources were scarce.

His formal education was erratic. He enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign but dropped out in his second year after his adoptive mother died. He tried again at the University of Chicago, attending just one semester before dropping out again. After leaving college, he wandered across the United States for several years, working sporadically as a programmer in Chicago before heading to Berkeley, California—a place that represented both a hub of counterculture and an emerging ecosystem of technological innovation. For Ellison, this environment offered something he hadn’t found elsewhere: “people who seemed freer and smarter.”

What truly transformed his destiny was his job at Ampex Corporation, a company dedicated to audiovisual storage and data processing, where he worked as a programmer in the early 1970s. It was at Ampex that he participated in a project that would mark him forever: designing an innovative database system for the CIA with the code name “Oracle.” This experience opened his eyes to the commercial potential of relational databases.

In 1977, at age 32, Ellison partnered with Bob Miner and Ed Oates to found Software Development Laboratories (SDL) with an initial investment of $2,000—$1,200 of his own. His decision was bold: based on his CIA experience and the relational model, they would develop a commercial database system to sell to businesses. They named their creation simply “Oracle.”

Although Ellison was not the inventor of database technology, he was among the first to understand its absolute commercial value and to bet his entire fortune on that vision. In 1986, Oracle went public on Nasdaq, becoming a star in the enterprise software market. For over forty years, he held virtually every executive role in the company: president from 1978 to 1996, chairman from 1990 to 1992, and CEO for three decades. A surfing accident nearly cost him his life in 1992, but this brush with death did not interrupt his leadership. He returned to the company and continued at the helm for another decade. In 2014, he stepped down as CEO in favor of a long-time subordinate but remained as executive chairman and CTO, the soul of the company throughout its existence.

When AI Changed Everything: How Oracle Surpassed Its Rivals

For years, Oracle seemed like a lagging giant. While Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure dominated the cloud computing wave, Ellison’s company appeared stuck in its glorious past of enterprise databases. But the rise of generative artificial intelligence completely changed the game.

On September 10, 2025, Oracle announced a series of massive contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars, including a $300 billion, five-year partnership with OpenAI. The market responded spectacularly: shares soared over 40% in a single day, the biggest jump since 1992. This surge was no accident. With its historic strength in databases and focus on enterprise clients, Oracle was perfectly positioned for the infrastructure that AI required.

In summer 2025, the company announced significant layoffs of several thousand employees, mainly in traditional hardware and software sales. Simultaneously, it massively increased its investment in data centers and AI infrastructure, transforming into one of the leading providers during the boom of generative AI. The industry began to see Oracle not as a “legacy software company,” but as the “dark horse of AI infrastructure.” In January 2026, Ellison appeared at the White House alongside the CEO of SoftBank and the CEO of OpenAI to announce a $500 billion data center network. Oracle was the technological core of this project, a move that transcended mere business and extended into geopolitical power.

The Ellison Dynasty: When Wealth Expands Across Generations

Ellison’s wealth has long ceased to be a personal legend and has become a family empire. His son David recently made a monumental move: acquiring Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS and MTV, for $8 billion, of which $6 billion came from family funds. This transaction marked the official entry of the Ellison family into Hollywood. While the father builds the future of tech infrastructure in Silicon Valley, the son expands the empire into the entertainment industry: two generations, two realms of modern power.

In the political arena, Ellison is equally active. For years, he has supported the Republican Party as a significant donor. In 2015, he funded Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign; in 2022, he donated $150 million to the super PAC of Senator Tim Scott. His presence at the White House in January 2026 was not just a business act but a demonstration of his political influence and positioning within the U.S. executive sphere.

Marriages, Sports, and a Life of Self-Discipline: How the World’s Richest Man Lives

Ellison embodies a fascinating contradiction: he is simultaneously a luxury magnate and a practitioner of nearly ascetic self-discipline. He owns 98% of Lanai Island in Hawaii, several mansions in California, and world-class yachts. But at the same time, he has maintained throughout his life an extreme discipline routine that many younger entrepreneurs envy.

He has an almost instinctive obsession with water and wind. In 1992, he nearly died surfing, but the adrenaline rush became addictive. He later channeled this passion into sailing. In 2013, Oracle Team USA, which he supported, staged a legendary comeback in the America’s Cup and won the trophy, one of the greatest feats in the sport’s history. In 2018, he founded SailGP, an international high-speed catamaran league that today attracts investors like actress Anne Hathaway and football star Kylian Mbappé.

Tennis is another of his great passions. He revitalized the Indian Wells tournament in California, known as “the fifth Grand Slam.” For Ellison, sports are not just a hobby: they are his secret formula for staying young. According to former startup executives he invested in, during the 1990s and 2000s, he dedicated several hours daily to exercise. He rarely consumed sugary drinks; his diet was limited to water and green tea, controlled with almost scientific precision. This self-discipline explains why, at 81, he still appears energetic, with many observers commenting that he “looks twenty years younger than his peers.”

Personally, Ellison has gone through four previous marriages. In 2024, he discreetly married Jolin Zhu, a Chinese-born woman from Shenyang who graduated from the University of Michigan, 47 years his junior. The news emerged from a university donation document mentioning “Larry Ellison and his wife Jolin.” This new marriage with his current wife once again put his private life in the spotlight. Some social media users joke that Ellison loves surfing waves as much as he loves falling in love. Both experiences seem to attract him equally.

Personal Philanthropy: Designing the Future According to His Vision

In 2010, Ellison signed the “Giving Pledge,” publicly committing to donate at least 95% of his fortune. However, unlike other magnates like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, he rarely participates in collective philanthropic efforts. In an interview with The New York Times, he stated that “he values his solitude and does not want to be influenced by external ideas.” His philanthropy, like many other aspects of his life, bears a deeply personal mark.

In 2016, he donated $200 million to the University of Southern California to create a cancer research center. Recently, he announced that part of his fortune will go to the Ellison Institute of Technology, founded in collaboration with Oxford University, to research health, nutrition, and climate change issues. On social media, he wrote: “We want to design a new generation of life-saving medicines, build low-cost agricultural systems, and develop clean, efficient energy.” His philanthropic approach reflects his life philosophy: not to join his peers but to independently design a future aligned with his personal vision of the world.

Conclusion: The Rebel Who Won the Race

At 81, Larry Ellison finally reached the top as the world’s richest person, suddenly surpassing the businessman who had previously held that position. His journey—from a CIA contract, through building a global database empire, to a strategic positioning in the AI era—represents a “late comeback” that few expected.

Wealth, power, political influence, successive marriages including his current wife, extreme sports, and personal philanthropy: his life has never lacked topics of conversation nor remained free of controversy. He is the old “rebel” of Silicon Valley: stubborn, combative, never gives up, always reinventing himself. The throne of the world’s richest person may soon change hands again—such is the volatile nature of tech fortunes in times of transformation. But for now, Ellison has shown the world that in an era where artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules of everything, the legend of the old tech titans is far from over.