During the 2026 fiscal year, Oracle, a major American technology company, granted its co-founder Larry Ellison and co-CEOs Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia stock options valued at a total of 988 million dollars. However, these options ended the year with no intrinsic value, as Oracle's stock price fell by 53 percent, closing at 137 dollars on September 25, 2026. Despite this, Oracle reported a 17 percent increase in revenue, reaching 67.4 billion dollars for the year. However, the company's investment expenses reached 55.7 billion dollars, and its free cash flow turned negative. Oracle stated that the lack of value in the options was expected, as the compensation structure was designed to be performance-linked, rewarding executives only if the stock price exceeded the exercise price. Oracle, based in Austin, Texas, was founded in 1977 in California by Larry Ellison and others. It is one of the world's largest companies by market capitalization and was ranked 52nd in the Forbes Global 2000 in 2026. However, the company is currently facing significant financial challenges, having accumulated over 150 billion dollars in debt related to artificial intelligence (AI) investments. Oracle shifted away from a profitable software model to heavily invest in the cloud and AI sectors, even providing financial support to OpenAI, a leading AI research laboratory. This strategy has led to a decline in its credit rating and forced the company to cut 21,000 jobs to manage its financial obligations. According to Fortune, Ellison was among the world’s wealthiest individuals in early 2026, with a net worth between 201 and 203 billion dollars. The stock options granted to Ellison and the co-CEOs were based on a stock price that had previously reached near-record levels. Ellison's options were valued at 117.8 million dollars when granted in October 2025, with an exercise price of 280 dollars per share. Magouyrk and Sicilia received options valued at 621.7 million and 248.7 million dollars, respectively, with an exercise price of 308 dollars. By the end of the fiscal year, Oracle's stock had dropped to 137 dollars, meaning the stock price would need to more than double for these options to have value. Despite the strong performance in cloud-related revenue, which rose by 39 percent to 34 billion dollars and 77 percent in cloud infrastructure revenue to 18.1 billion dollars, Oracle’s aggressive investment strategy led to significant financial strain. Investment expenses reached 55.7 billion dollars, and free cash flow was negative at -23.7 billion dollars. The company raised 43 billion dollars through bond issuance and sold 20 billion dollars worth of shares at 141 dollars per share. While Oracle’s board emphasized that the compensation structure was functioning as intended, the chief financial officer, Hilary Maxson, chose to convert part of her compensation into restricted shares, which lost value during the year. Meanwhile, Ellison and the co-CEOs each received 4.9 million dollars in cash bonuses, with Ellison’s base salary increasing significantly. However, Oracle employees experienced a drop in median compensation, and the company’s workforce shrank by nearly 13 percent due to layoffs and AI-driven automation.