Oracle Gave Larry Ellison and His Co-CEOs Nearly $1 Billion in Stock Options. By Year End, Every Single One Was Underwater

Oracle’s latest wage communicative comes with a brutal twist: the institution handed co-founder Larry Ellison and recently minted co-CEOs Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia banal enactment packages worthy a combined $988 cardinal successful fiscal 2026, past watched each assistance descend beneath h2o by the May 31, 2026 fiscal twelvemonth end. That downside landed contempt a twelvemonth erstwhile Oracle’s unreality concern boomed and the banal logged a 38% full return. In a proxy connection published connected 9/25/2026, Oracle said the awards “had nary intrinsic value” astatine twelvemonth end, underscoring however accelerated the mathematics tin flip erstwhile a onslaught terms meets a banal illustration that refuses to cooperate.

One of the alien firm scorecards this period comes from Oracle, wherever a astir billion-dollar enforcement wage stake coiled up worthy precisely thing by the clip the books closed. The item popped retired of caller sum by Fortune, and it captures a acquainted tech tension: rewarding leaders for a beardown run, past watching the marketplace determination the different way.

A billion-dollar stake turns sour

In fiscal 2026, Oracle awarded banal enactment packages with a combined grant-date worth of $988 million to co-founder Larry Ellison and recently promoted co-CEOs Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia. The grants followed a twelvemonth erstwhile Oracle’s unreality concern boomed and the banal delivered a 38% full return. But by the fiscal twelvemonth extremity connected May 31, 2026, each 1 of those options was underwater.

Oracle’s proxy statement, published September 25, 2026, enactment it bluntly: the options “had nary intrinsic value.” That line, tucked wrong Form DEF 14A, is the benignant of compensation footnote that reads similar a marketplace verdict, not a wage plan.

Two caller CEOs, and the terms of optimism

The packages hint backmost to a enactment reshuffle successful September 2025, erstwhile Oracle promoted Magouyrk, 39, and Sicilia, 54, to co-CEOs, succeeding Safra Catz, who stayed connected arsenic enforcement vice chair. Catz called the pairing “a lucifer made successful heaven,” a enactment that made consciousness successful the moment, with unreality momentum down them.

Just days aft the promotions, Magouyrk received an enactment bundle valued astatine $621.7 cardinal and Sicilia received $248.7 million. Ellison’s ain enactment grant arrived successful October 2025, valued astatine $117.8 cardinal erstwhile granted, with a $280 onslaught price. The co-CEOs’ workout terms was acceptable astatine $308, precocious capable that the stock’s adjacent twelvemonth would substance a lot.

A brutal reset successful the stock, and successful sentiment

By June 26, 2026, Oracle shares logged their steepest play driblet since August 2001, falling 19% amid capitalist worries astir AI financing and the company’s equilibrium sheet. CNBC tied that descent to swelling spending and scrutiny implicit however rapidly the mathematics could work. The infinitesimal is preserved successful the week ending June 26, 2026.

On September 25, 2026, Oracle banal closed astatine $137, down 53% implicit the anterior 12 months. During 2026, it swung from a 52-week precocious of $341.82 to a debased of $114.50, which helps explicate however rapidly those lofty onslaught prices turned into dormant weight.

The measure for gathering unreality and AI

Underneath the banal illustration sat a spending surge: Oracle’s superior expenditures roseate 162% to astir $56 billion successful fiscal 2026. By the extremity of May 2026, it reported astir $24 cardinal successful antagonistic escaped currency travel and astir $130 billion successful debt, a operation that tin marque Wall Street impatient adjacent erstwhile the merchandise roadmap looks ambitious.

The strain was not constricted to the C-suite. Oracle reported median worker compensation of $94,740 successful fiscal 2026, down from $98,899 successful fiscal 2025, alongside layoffs and a broader world that galore company-wide options were underwater too.