Ellison cancels a $7.5 billion Oracle share sale, saying no stock was sold

Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison has cancelled his plan to sell 50 million shares of Oracle stock, the company said on Saturday³. The holding was worth around $7.5 billion at current prices^2,5. Ellison said no shares had been sold^6,8.

The arrangement was a Rule 10b5-1 plan, the pre-scheduled trading mechanism that lets insiders sell on a set schedule, and the cancellation was recorded on September 12, 2026¹⁰. The Financial Times described the reversal as an about-face by the Oracle co-founder⁷. CNBC reported the same cancellation as Ellison nixing a plan to offload up to $7.5 billion worth of stock⁵, and the Wall Street Journal’s account leads on the same two facts: that no stock was sold, and that the plan to unload 50 million shares is withdrawn⁸.

Why it matters to investors

Insider selling at the centre of the AI trade is read as a sentiment signal, and a plan of this size withdrawn before execution removes a known supply overhang^2,3. The figure is large in absolute terms: 50 million shares, worth about $7.5 billion⁶.

It lands while the company’s own spending is rising. Oracle will spend $700 million more on restructuring costs as it ramps up AI spending⁴. The two disclosures point the same way on how the company reads the build-out, though neither source links them directly.

The disclosure timeline is tight. The cancellation was recorded on September 12, 2026¹⁰, and the company confirmed it on Saturday³. For a register in which the founder holds a stake of this size, the difference between a scheduled sale and a cancelled one is a change in expected float rather than in reported ownership, and the sum attached to it, around $7.5 billion, is what makes the distinction material².

What to watch

Ellison’s public role is shrinking even as his stake stays intact. He has been absent from Oracle’s earnings calls this year and is not on the billing for next month’s user conference⁹. Co-chief executives Magouyrk and Sicilia are steering the company toward cloud infrastructure¹.

Whether the plan is refiled is the concrete thing to follow, since a cancelled 10b5-1 arrangement can be replaced with a new one on fresh terms¹⁰. The restructuring charge is the other number to track against the AI capital spending it accompanies⁴. For now the company’s disclosure is narrow: the plan is cancelled, and no stock was sold^3,8.