Ellison Cancels $7.5 Billion Stock Sale Plan

Rule 10b5-1 Trading Plan

Oracle disclosed in a regulatory filing Friday that Ellison had adopted the trading plan on June 22, 2026, and that it was scheduled to expire on Oct. 24, 2026. The arrangement had been scheduled to remain in effect through October 24, 2026 and potentially covered the sale of as many as 50 million Oracle shares. Rule 10b5-1 plans are commonly used by corporate executives and other insiders to establish predetermined instructions for future stock transactions. The plans are designed to allow trades to occur according to conditions established in advance rather than through discretionary decisions made while an insider may possess material nonpublic information. In Ellison’s case, however, the contemplated sales never took place. In a statement Saturday, Oracle said Ellison had reversed course. No Oracle stock was sold under that plan, and he has no other plans to sell any of his Oracle stock, it said. At an approximate value of $7.5 billion, the potential sale would have represented a large insider stock-disposition program involving the founder or senior executive of a major technology company. Ellison remains one of Oracle’s largest shareholders and one of the technology industry’s most prominent founder-investors. Cloud Capex Pressures and Surging Short Interest

Oracle Corp. Shares

The scrapped disposition program arrived at a precarious juncture for Oracle, whose shares have experienced severe turbulence amid a broader retreat in technology stocks. Oracle Corp.’s shares dipped about 2% in overnight trading late Sunday amid a broader selloff in AI-linked stocks after Anthropic and OpenAI called for the industry to pace the development of frontier AI technology. The developments outweighed optimism from Oracle co-founder and Chairman Larry Ellison canceling a planned stock sale of up to $7.5 billion, putting further pressure on the shares after they posted their sharpest weekly decline in nearly two months. Rising capex and higher restructuring costs are fueling concerns about Oracle’s aggressive AI infrastructure buildout. Wall Street has grown increasingly wary of Oracle’s aggressive capital expenditures directed toward cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure data centers. While the company reported quarterly results that topped Wall Street estimates and a smaller cash burn than expected, easing some concerns about its debt-fueled spending spree and leading to a jump in the shares on Friday, its shares later reversed course as analysts said a recovery in cash flow remained some way off. Oracle’s shares have taken a beating this year on growing investor concerns over soaring capital expenditure that has pressured its free cash flow. The shares are down nearly 23% year to date and were more than 18% below their closing level on June 18, the last trading day before Ellison adopted the plan. Oracle did not give a reason for the cancellation of Ellison’s trading plan. Ellison, 82, served as Oracle’s CEO until 2014 and is the company’s largest shareholder, owning over 38% of the company, according to LSEG data, while FactSet notes he controls over 40% of Oracle and would still own 1.1 billion shares if he sells all of the stock in the plan. Since the start of this century, Ellison has never sold more than 25,000 Oracle shares at any given time, according to FactSet. Ellison, the world’s seventh-richest person, helped finance the 2025 merger of his son David Ellison’s production company, Skydance, with Paramount. Financial pressures extend beyond infrastructure buildouts. Oracle’s restructuring costs are also set to rise as the company works to rein in expenses amid heavy investment in cloud and AI infrastructure. The company is expected to spend about $2.8 billion on its 2026 restructuring plan, roughly $700 million more than previously projected, with much of the increase tied to employee severance costs, according to the company. The firm also announced restructuring costs, part of a plan that includes job cuts, will rise by about $700 million. OpenAI and Anthropic Stir Industrywide Hesitation

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Larry Ellison cancels $7.5bn Oracle share sale

OpenAI and Anthropic

Adding to the cautious sentiment, external headwinds are rippling across the artificial intelligence sector, as OpenAI’s delayed IPO and calls for slower frontier-AI development are seen as pressuring Oracle’s outlook. The pressure was compounded by key customer OpenAI confirming it is delaying its planned initial public offering until next year. This cooling sentiment has intensified bearish bets against Oracle. Short interest has nearly doubled this year, even as ORCL shares climbed over the past two months. Market Reactions and Retail Sentiment

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Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison, chairman and chief technology officer of Oracle, previously delivered a keynote address during the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco on Sept. 16, 2019, according to Getty Images. Ellison adopted the plan on June 22, and it’s set to end on Oct. 24, according to a regulatory filing published Friday. It’s an unusual move for Ellison, who has held onto a substantial part of the company that he launched in 1977. Jefferies analyst Brent Thill noted that institutional investors are still worried about the balance sheet. See what 10M+ investors are talking about by getting the Stocktwits Daily Rip for what retail is watching right now, free to your inbox. Ellison canceled a plan to sell up to 50 million Oracle shares under a trading plan that was originally set to run from June through October 2026.