Few companies have loomed larger over the modern tech industry than Oracle. Founded in 1977, it built its empire on enterprise databases, and spent decades quietly raking in billions of dollars from selling its business software, IT infrastructure and data management services. Today, Oracle’s operations go far beyond its original database origins, as it takes a more prominent role in the global AI arms race.
What Is Oracle?
Oracle is an American technology company that specializes in data management, enterprise software and cloud infrastructure. Originally known for its relational database system, it now operates in fields like human capital management, customer relationship management, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence as well.
Indeed, Oracle has been at the center of some of the most significant moves in the artificial intelligence industry lately. President Donald Trump tapped the company to manage TikTok’s U.S. data and algorithm, allowing the Chinese-owned social media app to continue operating in the United States. It also entered a $300 billion deal with ChatGPT maker OpenAI to power its growing supply of data centers, reportedly making it one of the largest cloud contracts ever signed.
And of course there is no Oracle without Larry Ellison, its co-founder and chairman. While he may not quite be a household name like Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, Ellison wields immense influence thanks to his massive fortune and political ties — particularly with President Trump. In the sections ahead, we’ll trace Oracle’s evolution from the database kingpin of the 1990s to a key piece of America’s continued AI supremacy.
What Is Oracle?
Oracle is one of the largest technology companies in the world. While it originally built its reputation for data management, Oracle has since expanded into enterprise applications, cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure, counting Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud as some of its biggest competitors.
Founded in 1977 as Software Development Laboratories by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates, Oracle created the first commercially available relational database management system, known as RDBMS Oracle, which stores, manages and retrieves data. By 1982, the company rebranded to Oracle Systems Corporation, and in 1995 adopted its current name, Oracle Corporation. Ellison served as CEO for nearly four decades before stepping into his current role as chief technology officer and chairman in 2014. Today, he is one of the most influential figures in the tech industry and continues to be the face of Oracle, often appearing at White House events, earnings calls and other public announcements.
Oracle has 162,000 employees worldwide as of September 2025, and generates tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue. The company was based in Silicon Valley until 2020, then moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas. Ellison said in 2024 that it intends to move its headquarters again to Nashville, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Oracle’s transformation from a database vendor to a global tech juggernaut has been driven largely by more than 150 acquisitions. Among the most significant are:
- PeopleSoft (2005): Offers software for human capital management and enterprise resource planning.
- Siebel Systems (2006): Developed customer relationship management software for sales teams.
- BEA Systems (2008): Developed middleware technologies, like software to manage applications.
- Sun Microsystems (2010): Gave Oracle ownership of MySQL, an open source relational database management system, and Java, an open-source programming language.
- NetSuite (2016): A cloud software company Ellison co-founded with former Oracle employee Evan Goldberg in 1998.
- Cerner (2023): The second-largest electronic health records company in the United States.
Oracle’s Products and Services
While Oracle built its reputation on its database management system, the company has since expanded its reach, offering software applications, cloud infrastructure and other technical services for business customers.
Oracle Database
Oracle Database is a relational database that allows companies to store, organize and analyze company data. The database is a core piece of data infrastructure for many companies, typically storing the data used by other applications In 2018, Oracle launched the first autonomous database that is self-patching, self-tuning and self-managing.
Oracle Cloud Applications
Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications is a suite of cloud software solutions to assist businesses with enterprise resource planning, financial management and human resources functions, as well as customer experience, supply chain management and data analytics. Oracle’s multi-cloud integrations allow Oracle Database and other Oracle applications to be accessed within other cloud environments, like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Oracle allows clients to buy computing power and data storage from its growing footprint of data centers in 26 countries. It also offers more than 150 cloud services, including developer tools such as data management, application development, integration and analytics. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure also allows AI developers to train models and process AI workloads on the Oracle Cloud.
Hardware and Middleware
Oracle also has a suite of hardware offerings, such as servers, storage and engineered systems. Oracle’s Exadata system is designed to improve the performance and scale of Oracle’s databases.
Oracle’s Growing Role in AI Infrastructure
Oracle has positioned itself as a central player in America’s artificial intelligence industry. In January 2025, with the support of the Trump administration, the company joined forces with OpenAI, Microsoft and Nvidia on a $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative known as the Stargate Project, with the goal of building 20 data centers in the United States over the next four years to accelerate domestic AI innovation.
The sheer scope of Oracle’s AI infrastructure work wasn’t fully appreciated until a September 2025 earnings call, when executives announced it had locked in $455 billion in future contract revenue, thanks in part to several multibillion-dollar contracts with some of the country’s top AI labs — among them Elon Musk’s xAI and OpenAI. The company predicted its cloud infrastructure business would grow from $18 billion to $144 billion in the next five years. The day after the earnings call, Oracle’s stock soared more than 35 percent.
A major driver of Oracle’s future revenue growth was attributed to its cloud deal with OpenAI, which was announced two months earlier as part of the Stargate Program. Under that contract, OpenAI committed to buying $300 billion in computing power from Oracle over a five-year period starting in 2027.
“Several world-class AI companies have chosen Oracle to build large-scale GPU-centric data centers to train their AI models,” Ellison told investors on the call. “That’s because Oracle builds gigawatt scale data centers that are faster and more cost efficient at training AI models than anyone else in the world. “
Ellison went on to say that Oracle is tapping into a market even bigger than AI training: AI inferencing, or the ability to glean insights from data. Oracle has a unique advantage here, Ellison said, because it is “by far the world’s largest custodian of high-value private enterprise data.” The company has vectorized this data, allowing it to be understood by large language models. And using a new cloud infrastructure service called the Oracle AI Database, clients will be able to use ChatGPT, Gemini and other chatbots to ask questions about their data, such as how tariffs will affect a company’s quarterly revenue.
Oracle’s Oversight of TikTok in the U.S.
Oracle’s role in the American tech industry expanded in a new direction in the wake of the TikTok ban. Owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance, the app had long been criticized for its national security risks, with politicians worried that the Chinese government could use TikTok to access sensitive data from American users or manipulate its notoriously addictive algorithm for propaganda purposes.
Trump tried to force ByteDance to sell TikTok to an American company during his first term, and President Joe Biden later signed bipartisan legislation making it mandatory to continue operating in the country. As an interim measure, ByteDance announced Project Texas in 2023, which made Oracle responsible for storing and managing the U.S. TikTok users’ data. However, the app still faced a nationwide ban unless it was sold by January 19, 2025.
Trump had a change of heart in his second term, and delayed the TikTok ban from taking effect four separate times while negotiating terms with China. Then, in September 2025, the White House announced they had reached a deal that would shift ownership of TikTok’s U.S. operations to Oracle and other investors, leaving ByteDance with a less than 20 percent stake (neither ByteDance nor the Chinese government have publicly confirmed this). Under the agreement according to the Trump administration, Oracle will license a copy of TikTok’s algorithm and retrain it using only U.S. data. American users will still be able to view posts from other countries, but the platform’s inner workings will fall squarely under Oracle’s oversight, and China will not have access to any U.S. data.
If this deal goes through as planned, Oracle will no longer be just another cloud provider — it will be a custodian for one of the most culturally significant platforms in the world.
Larry Ellison’s Tech Empire and Ties to Trump
Ellison isn’t just any corporate executive — he is one of the wealthiest and most politically connected figures in American business today. Ranked as the world’s second-richest person, according to Bloomberg, his fortune stretches beyond database management and cloud computing. He also owns several real estate holdings, including 98 percent of a Hawaiian island, where he has funded luxury tourism projects, agricultural experiments and health initiatives.
Ellison has also long leveraged his wealth for political influence. Though he has donated to candidates on both sides of the aisle, he is a longtime ally of Trump, who has turned to him as a trusted partner on the TikTok deal and other matters. Anonymous sources in Trump’s circle told Wired that Ellison has a tremendous amount of political pull in Washington, likening him to a sort of “shadow president.”
Beyond technology and politics, the Ellison family also holds a lot of influence in today’s media and entertainment landscape. Larry Ellison’s son, David Ellison, owns Skydance Media, which merged with Paramount Global, the owner of CBS, in 2024. The company has now turned its sights on acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery, according to The Wall Street Journal. Looking ahead, the younger Ellison reportedly plans to acquire the pro-Israel, “anti-woke” media company The Free Press, with the intention of tapping its cofounder Bari Weiss to run CBS News.
Taken altogether, Ellison — and by extension Oracle — has tremendous influence across many areas of everyday life.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Oracle do?
Oracle develops enterprise software, database technology and cloud infrastructure for businesses, governments and organizations worldwide.
What is Oracle best known for?
Oracle is probably best known for its relational database systems, which became a standard for enterprise data management. It is also known for its cloud computing services.
Who owns Oracle?
Oracle is a publicly traded company, operating under the ticker symbol ORCL. Its largest individual shareholder is co-founder Larry Ellison, who serves as the company’s chief technology officer and chairman.
