Larry Ellison is the second richest person in the world. The Oracle co-founder net worth is about $380 billion following a 36% surge in Oracle shares. He has made big moves into big media. Big Media is relevant for political influence but also for data and reach that is useful for winning in AI.
Paramount Global, post its August 2025 merger with Skydance Media, trades at a ~$20 billion market cap, encompassing CBS (broadcast TV leader with 20+ million weekly prime-time viewers), Paramount+ (60 million subscribers), and film/studio assets. Ellison’s family—primarily Larry via his Lawrence Investments family office—holds an effective ~80% controlling stake, valued at $16 billion.
Holding Structure:
Layer 1: Skydance Media Acquisition: Skydance (led by son David Ellison) acquired Paramount for $8 billion in cash/equity, with the Ellison family funding ~$6 billion (75% of the deal). RedBird Capital contributed the balance for a 22.5% voting slice.
Layer 2: Voting Superstructure: Post-merger, the Ellisons control ~26% of Class A voting shares outright, but Larry dominates a holding entity (National Amusements) with ~77.5% ownership, granting de facto 80% control over board decisions. This dual-class setup (common in media) dilutes public shareholders while securing content pipelines for Oracle’s AI ambitions (personalized streaming).
Risk/ Upside: At $16 billion, this is ~4% of Ellison’s net worth but is useful for synergies (data, news etc.. for AI). Paramount’s $30 billion enterprise value offers 20x EBITDA leverage if Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) bid closes ($55 billion rumored).
Ellison’s TikTok US Holdings
The September 2025 US-China TikTok deal divests 80% of US operations into a new entity valued at $35-40 billion (global TikTok at $200+ billion, US 20% by revenue). Oracle, Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz takes 80% ($28-32 billion). ByteDance keeps 20% non-voting. Oracle’s portion isn’t public but, as lead it is estimated at 33% of the consortium ($9.3-10.7 billion total for Oracle).
Ellison own 41% of Oracle so he has ~$3.8-4.4 billion of TikTok USA.
Total Ellison media: ~$20 billion (Paramount $16B + TikTok $4B). ~5% of his net worth but it has high-reach (270M+ users).
Below is a table of the new media landscape.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
Just a personal opinion: I believe that social media apps like this that allow for these viral remixed bite-sized news clips, etc, need to be completely done away with. Instagram was fine with only photos. I say no video. No animated gifs. Still pictures only. We should do everything possible to do away with apps that encourage constant scrolling. I’d be fine with going back to the pre-Facebook days. All hail the original MySpace. xD
Or, if we’re going to have video apps, they should not be anything goes. They should be required to be tailored to specific topics. I.e., sports only, horses only, martial arts only, etc. No whining about, “I can’t get it all in one place, waaaah!” Cry me a river. The all-in-one-get-all-content-here platforms are partially why we’re in this mess.
Then again, social media can be an excellent honeypot for catching extremists before they do insane stuff. I still say get rid of it, though.