{"text":[[{"start":10,"text":"Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison plans to sell up to $7.5bn worth of shares in the database giant by the end of next month, regulatory filings revealed on Friday."}],[{"start":22,"text":"Ellison, chair of the Austin, Texas-based group, will sell as many as 50mn shares via an orderly trading plan running through to the end of October 2026."}],[{"start":32.8,"text":"At Friday’s closing price of $150, the stake is worth about $7.5bn. The trading plan was set up in late June, according to Oracle’s latest quarterly filing."}],[{"start":44.08,"text":"The disclosure came after Oracle on Thursday reported a boost in revenue from its data centre business but experienced a slight dip in its share price as investors cautioned that its margins continued to compress on the back of its all-in AI bet."}],[{"start":58.04,"text":"Oracle declined to comment."}],[{"start":59.84,"text":"Ellison, 82, is at the centre of a series of outsized bets aimed at consolidating his family’s grip on US media. Meanwhile, the database giant he founded nearly half a century ago is undergoing a radical transformation as it seeks to tap the ravenous demand from AI companies for data centre capacity."}],[{"start":78.64,"text":"The billionaire in December agreed to personally backstop the $40bn equity financing of his son’s hostile bid for Warner Bros Discovery. Paramount Skydance, the production company helmed by Ellison’s son David, has agreed to freeze the proposed merger until as late as next June as a dozen US states seek to block the deal on antitrust grounds."}],[{"start":99.48,"text":"Ellison is also financing a number of high-profile research projects, including the Ellison Institute of Technology in Oxford and the Ellison Medical Institute in Los Angeles."}],[{"start":110.12,"text":"As of September 2025, the billionaire had pledged 346mn shares of Oracle stock as collateral to secure personal loans, according to the company’s most recent proxy filing. He remains the company’s largest individual shareholder with a 40 per cent stake."}],[{"start":126.8,"text":"Ellison has not appeared on recent company earnings calls after being an ever-present face of Oracle for decades. People close to the billionaire said he remained “super active” in day-to-day decision-making."}],[{"start":137.04,"text":"The billionaire has been central to Oracle’s push into AI data centres, having appeared at the White House in early 2025 alongside OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son as they unveiled the AI start-up’s $500bn Stargate plan to secure the computing power to help train advanced AI models."}],[{"start":158.2,"text":"Stargate has since evolved into a series of bilateral deals but Oracle in September agreed to provide $300bn in capacity to OpenAI. The contract helped Ellison to briefly eclipse Elon Musk as the world’s richest person."}],[{"start":173.12,"text":"Oracle’s build-out for OpenAI has experienced setbacks as permitting and regulatory hurdles have proven difficult to surmount."}],[{"start":181.24,"text":"Yet the company has ploughed ahead, raising substantial debt and issuing new shares in an effort to finance the projects."}],[{"start":188.4,"text":"The company has also undertaken sweeping lay-offs and on Friday disclosed that it had allocated a further $700mn to finance severance costs in the coming year, after spending $2.1bn in the last fiscal year when it laid off tens of thousands of workers."}],[{"start":210.6,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1789218227_4040.mp3"}