Larry Ellison Pledges an Additional $9.2 Billion in Oracle Shares as Loan Collateral as Executive Options Sit Underwater

Larry Ellison, executive chair and chief technology officer of ORCL, has pledged an additional 67 million Oracle shares as collateral for personal loans compared with a year earlier, representing about $9.2 billion at Friday's closing price, according to Bloomberg. That is a 19% increase in pledged shares since 2025, and pledged shares now make up about 36% of the roughly 1.16 billion Oracle shares he owns. The $9.2 billion is the value of the newly added shares, not the total pledge. Oracle's policy bars officers and directors from pledging company shares for personal loans, with an exception for Ellison. The reporting ties the financing partly to the Ellisons' $47 billion equity commitment toward Paramount Skydance's acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

The same proxy filing showed that stock options awarded in fiscal 2026 to Ellison and co-CEOs Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia, with a combined grant-date value of $988 million, were all underwater by the May 31 fiscal year-end, as reported by Fortune. Strike prices were $280 for Ellison and $308 for the co-CEOs, against a Friday close of about $137, with the stock down 53% over the past 12 months. The compensation committee took no special action to offset the lost option value.

Separately, on September 12, Oracle said Ellison had canceled a Rule 10b5-1 plan, adopted June 22, 2026, to sell up to 50 million of his personal Oracle shares, worth about $7.5 billion. No shares were sold under the plan, and Oracle said Ellison has no other plans to sell any Oracle stock. Oracle gave no reason for the cancellation.

What to watch: further changes to Ellison's pledged share count in future filings, the financing of the Warner Bros. Discovery transaction, and where Oracle's share price trades relative to the $280 to $308 option strikes.