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On January 27, 2026, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison slipped to the sixth spot on the world’s richest list as Oracle shares slid further from their record highs. The drop was enough to let Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg leapfrog Ellison, a reminder that even titans of industry feel the squeeze when markets wobble.
Investors sent Oracle down about 2.3% during the trading session cited in reporting, with the stock already down more than 9 percent for the year, illustrating how quickly sentiment can turn against even dominant enterprise software names. Analysts at Morgan Stanley cut their price target dramatically, raising questions about the company’s heavy capital plans for infrastructure expansion and how Wall Street prices long-term bets on AI and cloud.
Forbes estimated Ellison’s net worth fell by roughly $5.3 billion to about $225.8 billion, placing him just behind Zuckerberg in the real-time billionaire rankings for that day. That kind of headline grabs attention, but it’s market math — paper wealth that swings with share prices and short-term analyst calls, not a moral judgment on a man who built one of America’s great tech firms.
Part of the recent volatility follows Oracle’s prominent role in the deal to restructure TikTok’s U.S. operations, where the company will hold a 15 percent stake and manage U.S. user data under the new TikTok USDS joint venture. The arrangement — finalized in late January and driven by pressure from Washington — puts American firms in the driver’s seat for user data and infrastructure, a practical response to national security concerns that too many in the coastal elite tried to politicize.
Conservatives should be clear-eyed: handing stewardship of U.S. user data to a reliable American firm is preferable to a chaotic federal ban or naive reliance on foreign ownership. Ellison’s move to take responsibility for storing and protecting TikTok’s U.S. data shows private enterprise can solve problems Democrats and bureaucrats have left unresolved, and it protects free expression for millions of Americans while addressing security questions.
Still, Wall Street’s reaction and a recent bondholder lawsuit over Oracle’s disclosure about future debt show the tough realities of running a massive company through rapid expansion and political headlines. Short-term traders smell opportunity and regulators and courts will inch through these disputes, but Americans who build things — not those who scalp headlines — are the ones who keep this country competitive.
In the end, Larry Ellison’s brief slide in the rankings is a market moment, not an obituary. Conservatives who believe in American grit and the private sector should celebrate leaders who step up to defend national interests, even if the media prefers to tally billionaires like sports scores. Markets will correct, fortunes will move, and the real story is that an American company is now central to keeping a major tech platform operating under U.S. safeguards.
