Ellison now has 413 million Oracle shares pledged for loans, up from 277 million two years ago

Larry Ellison had 413 million Oracle shares pledged as collateral for personal loans as of Sept. 21, according to the proxy statement Oracle filed with the SEC on Friday. A year earlier the figure was 346 million. Bloomberg reported the increase as about $9.2 billion of additional stock, which matches the 67 million new pledged shares at Friday's closing price of $137.08.

That headline figure is the smaller part of the story. Put the last three proxies side by side and the trend is steady and one-directional.

Three years of Oracle's own disclosures

Pledged shares are up 49% in two years. His actual holding barely moved: the 2026 figure is exactly 142,821 shares higher than 2025, and the proxy says 142,821 shares of his total are options exercisable within 60 days. So the growth is all in how much of the same stake is being used as collateral, not in a bigger stake.

His ownership percentage fell for a different reason. Oracle had 3.03 billion shares outstanding on the 2026 record date, against 2.77 billion in 2024. The company has been issuing stock to fund its data center buildout; its last quarterly filing showed it sold 141 million shares through an at-the-market program in a single quarter, as we reported in our story on the Project Jupiter notice.

What the collateral is worth now

On our arithmetic, the 413 million pledged shares were worth about $61.4 billion at the Sept. 21 close of $148.56 and about $56.6 billion at Friday's $137.08. They make up 13.6% of all Oracle shares outstanding. Nasdaq data put the stock's 52-week high at $322.54, so it is trading about 57% below that level. Oracle's market value was about $414 billion at Friday's close.

That is why a pledge disclosure draws attention. When a lender holds stock as collateral, a falling share price shrinks the cushion behind the loan. Oracle's board says the risk is contained, and lists its reasons in the filing:

• The pledged shares secure personal term loans used to fund Ellison's outside business ventures.
• None of the shares sit in margin accounts, the arrangement most associated with forced selling in a downturn.
• The pledges are not used to hedge his exposure to Oracle stock.
• The board believes he can repay the loans without resorting to the pledged shares.

The proxy says the governance committee reviews the arrangement every quarter. It does not disclose the loan amounts, lenders, maturities or the price at which collateral would need topping up, and those are the numbers that would tell outside holders how much room there is.

What stockholders will see next

The pledging question is already on the ballot indirectly. A shareholder proposal in the same proxy, from the National Legal and Policy Center, asks Oracle to keep today's low thresholds for filing shareholder proposals even if federal rules later allow higher ones. Its supporting statement cites last year's 346 million pledged shares as a reason minority holders need a voice. The board opposes the proposal. The annual meeting is set for Nov. 18 and will be virtual.

For traders, the practical point is that the disclosure is annual. The next hard number on Ellison's pledges comes in next year's proxy unless a loan event forces a filing sooner. Between now and then, the stock's path matters more than the pledge count: the same 413 million shares were worth about $4.7 billion less on Friday than on the record date four days earlier.

Sources: Oracle 2026, 2025 and 2024 proxy statements (SEC EDGAR); Bloomberg; Nasdaq market data. Percentages and dollar values are Chronicle calculations from those figures. This is market information, not investment advice.