Three well-behaved men stood at the podium – three generations: The son, the father, and the grandfather. Sam Altman, 39 years old and head of OpenAI; financier Masayoshi Son, 67; and Larry Ellison, 80, listened attentively this January Tuesday as US President Donald Trump, sworn in just the day before, explained how he would save America and the world with artificial intelligence (AI) and the hundreds of billions of dollars he planned to devote to it. Then Trump turned to his friend Larry – "the CEO of everything" – the man everyone respects, who had come to the White House even though, as Trump said, he doesn't "need to."

Doesn't need to? Trump, who measures people by their bank accounts, was of course referring to Ellison's immense fortune. Depending on Oracle's share price, Ellison fluctuated between the third and fifth richest person in the world, with a net worth estimated at around $230 billion. Not a bad nest egg for a well-earned retirement, especially since he officially stepped down from running the company 10 years ago.

But Larry Ellison is not one to retire. He remains Oracle's chairman and chief technology officer, and the presidential press conference was far from ceremonial. It carried huge stakes for Oracle: its place among the select few winners of the AI revolution. A bet that already appeared to be paying off, judging by the spectacular $30 billion deal signed on Wednesday, July 2. Under the agreement, Oracle will provide OpenAI – the start-up behind ChatGPT – with 4.5 gigawatts of computing power from its data centers, equivalent to more than three nuclear reactors.

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