Five Marriages, the Playboy Never Ages: The Wild Life of 81-Year-Old Billionaire Larry Ellison

On September 10th local time, 81-year-old Larry Ellison may be the most triumphant person in the world.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, this super-rich individual officially became the new richest person in the world that day. His net worth soared by over 100 billions in a single day, overtaking the long-time titleholder Elon Musk.

As the co-founder and largest individual shareholder of Oracle, Ellison’s net worth reached as high as 393 billions that day. Musk, who was dethroned, was left with “only” 385 billions.

From a college dropout with nothing to his name, through five marriages and relationships, to a man whose wealth rivals nations, how has this 81-year-old managed to become even more audacious with age?

From Abandoned Orphan to Silicon Valley Tycoon

Larry Ellison was born in 1944 in the Bronx, New York. His biological mother was a 19-year-old unmarried woman. Unable to raise him, she sent him to Chicago to be adopted by his aunt’s family when he was nine months old. His adoptive father was an ordinary government employee, and the family struggled financially.

Although he was later admitted to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he dropped out in his sophomore year after his adoptive mother passed away. Ellison then attended the University of Chicago, but left again after just one semester.

After leaving school, Ellison drifted around the United States for years. He did odd programming jobs in Chicago before driving to Berkeley, California—a center of counterculture and a hotbed of emerging technology. For him, “people there seemed freer and smarter.”

What truly changed his fate was his early 1970s job at Ampex Corporation, a technology company specializing in audio-video storage and data processing, where he worked as a programmer. At Ampex, he participated in a key project: designing a database system for the CIA to efficiently manage and query data, codenamed “Oracle.”

In 1977, 32-year-old Ellison and two former colleagues, Bob Miner and Ed Oates, pooled $2,000 (with Ellison contributing $1,200) to found Software Development Laboratories (SDL).

Their first major decision was to leverage their experience developing for the CIA and the relational data model to create a general-purpose commercial database system—naming it directly “Oracle.”

In 1986, Oracle went public on Nasdaq, becoming a rising star in the enterprise software market.

Strictly speaking, Ellison was not the “inventor” of database technology, but he was among the first to recognize its commercial value and to go all in, risking his entire fortune to open up the market.

Ellison is known for his rebellious and highly competitive personality, having held nearly every executive position at the company.

From 1978 to 1996, he was president; from 1990 to 1992, he served his first term as chairman. In 1992, he nearly lost his life in a surfing accident, but this near-death experience did not slow him down.

In 1995, he returned to the company and continued to lead for another decade. In 2014, he stepped down as CEO, handing the position to a long-time subordinate, but remained executive chairman and chief technology officer on the board, a role he still holds today.

Over more than forty years, Oracle has experienced both glory and setbacks. It once dominated the database market and later appeared sluggish at the dawn of the cloud computing wave. Regardless of its ups and downs, Oracle has always played a key role at the heart of enterprise software, with Ellison as the company’s soul.

Soaring Wealth: The “Belated Victory” Brought by AI

On September 10, 2025, Oracle announced that it had signed four contracts in the latest quarter totaling several hundreds of billions of dollars, including a $300 billion, five-year deal with OpenAI.

After the news broke, Oracle’s stock price soared over 40% in a single day—the largest one-day gain since 1992.

Although Oracle lagged behind Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure in the early cloud computing race, it has maintained a unique position thanks to its database strengths and deep cultivation of enterprise clients.

In the summer of 2025, the company announced a new round of layoffs involving thousands of employees, mainly in hardware sales and traditional software divisions. At the same time, Oracle increased its investment in data centers and AI infrastructure, becoming one of the core suppliers amid the generative AI boom.

The market is fervently demanding AI infrastructure, and Oracle holds this belated ticket, prompting industry commentary that Oracle has transformed from an “old-school software vendor” into a “dark horse of AI infrastructure.”

Family and Politics

Ellison’s wealth has long surpassed personal legend, expanding into a vast family empire.

His son, David Ellison, recently acquired Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS and MTV, for $8 billion, with $6 billion coming from the Ellison family’s financial support. This deal marks the Ellison family’s reach into Hollywood. The father is in Silicon Valley, the son in the film industry—the two generations together have built a wealth empire spanning technology and media.

On the political stage, Ellison is also a frequent presence. He has long supported the Republican Party and is a well-known political donor.

In 2015, he funded Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign; in 2022, he donated $15 million to South Carolina Senator Tim Scott’s super PAC. This January, he appeared at the White House alongside SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, announcing the construction of a $500 billion AI data center network. Oracle technology will be at its core—this is not only a business layout but also an extension of power.

“Playboy” Lifestyle: Loves the Outdoors, Self-Discipline, and Marriage

Luxury and self-discipline, adventure and passion—these contradictory traits coexist in Ellison.

Ellison owns 98% of the land on Hawaii’s Lanai Island, multiple mansions in California, and some of the world’s top yachts.

He has an almost instinctive obsession with water and wind. In 1992, he had a near-death experience while surfing, but still couldn’t give up the thrill. Later, he devoted more energy to sailing.

In 2013, Oracle Team USA, which he supported, staged a comeback in the America’s Cup and ultimately won the trophy—one of the most classic comebacks in sailing history.

In 2018, he founded the SailGP high-speed catamaran league, which now attracts investors including actress Anne Hathaway and football star Mbappé.

Tennis is another of his passions. He revitalized the Indian Wells tennis tournament in California, now known as the “fifth Grand Slam.”

Sports are not just his hobby—they are considered his secret to staying young.

In a 2018 Quora discussion, a former executive at one of Ellison’s startups mentioned that in the 1990s and 2000s, Ellison spent hours exercising every day. He rarely drank sugary beverages, only water and green tea, and strictly controlled his diet. This self-discipline keeps him energetic at 81, with some describing him as “twenty years younger than his peers.”

In his personal life, Ellison has been married four times and is often the subject of rumors.

In 2024, he quietly married Chinese-American Jolin Zhu, who is 47 years his junior. The news came from a University of Michigan document mentioning a donation from “Larry Ellison and his wife Jolin.” This marriage once again brought his private life into the public eye. According to the South China Morning Post, Jolin Zhu was born in Shenyang, China, and graduated from the University of Michigan.

Some netizens joke that Ellison loves surfing as much as he loves romance. For him, both the crest of the wave and the arena of love seem equally alluring.

Philanthropy and the Future

In 2010, Ellison signed the “Giving Pledge,” promising to donate at least 95% of his wealth. But unlike Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, he rarely participates in collective activities. In an interview with The New York Times, he said he “values his solitude and does not want to be influenced by external ideas.”

In 2016, he donated $200 million to the University of Southern California to establish a cancer research center. Recently, he announced that part of his wealth would go to the Ellison Institute of Technology, co-founded with Oxford University, to research medicine, food, and climate issues. On social media, he wrote: “We want to design a new generation of life-saving drugs for humanity, build low-cost agricultural systems, and develop efficient clean energy.”

Ellison’s approach to philanthropy is highly personal. He is not keen to stand with his peers, preferring to independently design a future that aligns with his own vision.

Conclusion

At age 81, Larry Ellison has finally become the world’s richest person.

He started with a CIA contract, built a global database empire, and then seized a key position in the AI wave, completing a “belated comeback.” Wealth, power, marriage, sports, and philanthropy—his life has never lacked topics and has never strayed far from the center of the storm.

He is Silicon Valley’s old “playboy”—stubborn, combative, and never compromising. The throne of the world’s richest may soon change hands again, but at least for now, Ellison has proven to the world: In an era when AI is reshaping everything, the legend of the old generation of tech tycoons is far from over.

Author: Seedco