Oracle To Spend Another $700 Million On Job Cuts Amid AI-Led Cash Crunch

Oracle Corp. increased the scale of its planned job cuts while the company grapples with a cash crunch tied to the development of large-scale data centres for artificial intelligence work.

The company also disclosed a new share trading program for Chairman Larry Ellison, who owns about 40 per cent of Oracle's stock. The plan, which was adopted June 22, permits Ellison to sell 50 million shares through October 24, the company said in a regulatory filing. The shares closed June 22 at $175.07 - a value of $8.75 billion for 50 million shares - and have declined 16 per cent since then through Friday's close.

Ellison has been a major financial backer of his son David's takeover last year of Paramount Global and a $110 billion bid by David Ellison's Paramount Skydance Corp. for Warner Bros. Discover Inc.

The cost of Oracle's job cuts, which the company lists as "2026 Restructuring Plan," is now estimated at about $2.8 billion, largely made up of severance payments to fired employees, according to the filing. Oracle has already accrued about $2.1 billion in costs tied to the plan, and the $700 million increase reflects "additional actions that we expect to take," the company said.

Oracle is under financial pressure because of an expensive build-out of AI data centres for customers like OpenAI. Earlier this year, it began cutting thousands of jobs as part of efforts to save cash, Bloomberg has reported. Business Insider reported last month that the company was drawing up plans for another round of cuts.

During a call with analysts Thursday, Chief Financial Officer Hilary Maxson called out "simplification and efficiency actions" as helping the company reduce costs and protect margins. As of the end of May, the company had about 49,000 US workers while about 92,000 were employed internationally. That's a decrease of 21,000 workers from a year earlier.

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