TikTok Deal: September turned out to be a landmark month for Larry Ellison, the 81-year-old billionaire founder of Oracle. His business empire has not only grown massively in the tech space, but it’s now extending deep into media and entertainment.
Thanks to a sharp rise in demand for artificial intelligence, Oracle has announced a record-breaking $100 billion backlog in orders. That, along with multi-billion-dollar partnerships with AI giants like OpenAI, Nvidia, and Meta, pushed Ellison’s personal fortune to an estimated $393 billion. For a short while, he even overtook Elon Musk as the world’s richest person.
But Ellison isn’t just making waves in tech anymore. He’s now quietly becoming one of the most influential figures in American media.
From Tech Tycoon to Media Mogul
Ellison recently helped fund Skydance Media, the company run by his son, David Ellison. Skydance completed an $8 billion deal to take over Paramount in August. Now, the Ellison family is backing a massive $70 billion+ bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, one of the largest names in the entertainment world.
If that deal goes through, the Ellisons could hold a dominant stake in two of Hollywood’s biggest legacy companies—Paramount and Warner Bros.—marking a huge shift in power across the industry.
Expert View: This isn’t just about owning film studios—this is about controlling distribution, content libraries, and access to audiences. That’s real media power.
The TikTok Twist: A Bigger Play at Stake
But perhaps Ellison’s most impactful move is happening with TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media giant.
Recently, President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company) to sell its U.S. operations due to national security concerns. If ByteDance fails to do so, TikTok faces a ban in the U.S.
Enter Ellison.
A new deal is now in the works. If approved by China, a joint venture led by Ellison, private equity firm Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based tech investor MGX would take over TikTok’s U.S. operations. ByteDance would keep a minority stake of less than 20%.
Under this arrangement:
-
Oracle would handle all U.S. security operations for TikTok, and
-
Oracle would also provide the cloud infrastructure, keeping all American user data on U.S. soil.
Expert Insight: This setup is meant to meet national security demands while keeping the popular platform active in the U.S. Oracle’s role here is critical—not just as a vendor but as a gatekeeper of TikTok’s data and algorithm in America.
What Is TikTok Really Worth?
ByteDance as a whole is currently valued at around $330 billion. The U.S. version of TikTok is obviously smaller—but how much smaller?
While Vice President JD Vance recently suggested it could be worth just $14 billion, analysts disagree. According to CFRA Research, a more realistic valuation is likely to be somewhere between $35 billion and $50 billion.
Why This Matters: A New Era of Media Control
Between the Paramount acquisition and the potential TikTok joint venture, Larry Ellison is positioning himself as a major force not just in Silicon Valley, but in Hollywood and beyond.
Final Thought: If both the Warner Bros. bid and the TikTok deal go through, Ellison may quietly become one of the most powerful media owners in the U.S. And unlike traditional moguls, he’s doing it through technology, cloud infrastructure, and smart partnerships—not just content creation.
As he enters the final chapter of his career, Larry Ellison seems determined to leave behind not just a tech legacy—but full-spectrum control over the platforms, data, and media shaping how the world consumes information.
Source: United States: With TikTok Deal, Larry Ellison Eyes Media Dominance
Know more about TikTok’s algorithm
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!