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Larry Ellison nixes plan to offload up to $7.5 billion worth of Oracle stock

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Why This Matters

Larry Ellison scrapped a plan to sell up to 50 million Oracle shares (~$7.5 billion) just a day after the filing became public, a signal watched closely given Oracle's 23% stock decline this year and the heavy debt it has taken on to build AI infrastructure. Insider selling by a founder who controls over 40% of the company would have been read as a vote of low confidence at a delicate moment. The reversal also matters because Ellison's wealth underwrites his son's Paramount Skydance bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.

Key Takeaways
Worth a Look

The Everything Store" by Brad Stone — For readers fascinated by Ellison's grip on Oracle, Matthew Symonds' "Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle" is the classic insider account, written with Ellison's own running commentary. It's a great way to understand the founder's mindset behind decades of bold bets, from database dominance to today's AI infrastructure pivot.

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Larry Ellison has canceled his plan to sell up to 50 million of his shares in Oracle , or $7.5 billion worth of stock at the current price.

The reversal came just a day after a regulatory filing disclosed the Oracle founder's trading plan, which had been adopted on June 22 and was set to end on Oct. 24.

No Oracle stock had been sold under the 10b5-1 Plan to sell stock, and Ellison has no other plans to sell any of his shares, according to the Saturday news release. Few other details were given.

The billionaire, 82, has held onto a substantial portion of the company that he founded in 1977. He continues to control more than 40% of Oracle, CNBC previously reported. Ellison has helped to turn Oracle from a legacy software maker into a major player in artificial intelligence infrastructure.

However, as part of the pivot, Oracle has amassed a hefty debt load and the stock has dropped roughly 23% this year.

Ellison is also the father of David Ellison, the current CEO of Paramount Skydance , which has been in pursuit of acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery . The elder Ellison has helped to finance the initial merger between David Ellison's Skydance Media and Paramount, and is also a backer of the proposed acquisition of WBD. The proposed deal is currently being held up by a state attorneys general lawsuit due to antitrust concerns.

-CNBC's Jordan Novet contributed this article.