Larry Ellison dropped to the world's eighth-richest person on Friday, his net worth falling to $192.6 billion after a two-month slide in Oracle shares knocked him from the No. 2 spot he held in early June. The decline coincides with a 54% peak-to-trough drop in the stock and a wave of analyst skepticism about the company's AI infrastructure spending.

The numbers behind the slide

Ellison's fortune has shrunk by $104 billion since June 2, when Forbes ranked him second behind only Elon Musk. Oracle shares hit just over $250 on June 1, bottomed at $114.50 on July 28, and closed Friday at $150.52. The company's market capitalization has fallen $443 billion from its September peak of $877.1 billion to $433.5 billion.

Spending plans and the OpenAI concentration

Oracle told investors it expects to raise $40 billion through debt and equity as capital expenditures surged 162% to $55.7 billion, with spending projected to exceed $95 billion by fiscal 2027. An eMarketer analyst told Reuters there are broader concerns about how the company would fund that capital spending to match its revenue projections. Bank of America analysts flagged that more than half of the company's $638 billion remaining performance obligation is tied to OpenAI. Melius Research warned last month that the spending trajectory could break if OpenAI or Anthropic demand more capacity than anticipated.

Credit downgrade and broader AI spend concerns

S&P Global downgraded Oracle's credit rating in July, arguing the rapidly expanding AI infrastructure business may prove too expensive and weaken the firm's financial position in the meantime. The concern mirrors a broader Wall Street debate about whether mega-cap tech companies are overcommitting, with Amazon signaling more than $200 billion in AI spending, while the revenue underpinning those outlays remains uncertain.

The Paramount guarantee and political ties

Separately, Ellison provided a $40.4 billion personal guarantee in December for Paramount Skydance's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal now paused until 2027 after a 12-state lawsuit. His son David Ellison, who runs Paramount Skydance, argued in a New York Times op-ed that regulatory scrutiny centers on whether he can be trusted as a steward of CNN. The elder Ellison backed President Trump's 2024 campaign and stood beside him at the White House for the announcement of a