Big Tech Firms Like Oracle Turn to Bonds to Finance A.I. Data Centers

Wealth from Oracle, the giant tech company founded by Larry Ellison, is enabling Larry and his son, David, to become media moguls. Thanks to backing from Larry’s Oracle billions, David has taken control of Paramount and is now engaged in a hotly contested $111 billion bid to take over Warner Bros. Discovery, too. They are trying to build a media behemoth containing two big movie studios, multiple streaming services and the news networks CNN and CBS News, all under one enormous corporate roof.

The fight over the Oracle-financed empire has, understandably, captured plenty of headlines.

But what hasn’t received nearly as much attention is another important development, the downgrading of Oracle debt. It now stands just one notch above junk bond status. That happened on July 9, when SP Global said that Oracle’s finances had been deteriorating. Oracle has also been hit hard in the stock market, reducing the value of Larry Ellison’s holdings since September by about $230 billion, according to my calculations based on FactSet data.

What has damaged Oracle’s debt rating and disturbed its finances is the elephant stomping throughout financial markets: colossal spending on artificial intelligence.

Data centers and the other infrastructure for A.I. involve staggering sums of money. These cascades of A.I.-driven cash have enriched diverse segments of the stock market, from semiconductor makers to engineering companies to utilities to energy producers. A.I. money is bolstering the entire U.S. economy, contributing perhaps 1.1 percent to the nation’s economic growth, JPMorgan Asset Management estimates.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/business/ai-spending-oracle-stocks-bonds.html