Even so, Mr Ellison remains the world’s fifth-richest man, and Oracle the third-biggest software firm. He has a thing or two to teach fellow tech titans, in particular his friend Elon Musk, about staying power.

Yes, that's the name of a 1994 Roland Emmerich movie. It's now a big infrastructure project to help power tech giants' foray into AI.

US tech titans Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos are taking a prominent place in the new Trump era, but another player from another era -- Oracle boss Larry Ellison -- is making a surprise return.

Other potential buyers include the philanthropist Frank Mccourt ’s Project Liberty, which is raising capital to make a bid for TikTok in order to “rearchitect the platform” and protect user data. McCourt is a billionaire who previously owned the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. The project is supported by the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt.

The American markets were spooked by the DeepSeek AI storm on Monday, January 27. While Dow Jones closed in green with minor gains, the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed with colossal losses of 612.47 points,

Apple Inc. and Oracle Corp. have reacted differently to President Donald Trump’s pledge that the U.S. government won’t enforce a national security law that raised potential penalties for U.S. partners of the popular video app TikTok.

During a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, President Donald Trump floated the idea of Elon Musk or Larry Ellison purchasing TikTok, while also proposing that the U.S. government take a significant share of the transaction.

TikTok has maintained about 90% of its user traffic in the U.S., despite briefly going offline and being removed from the Apple and Google app stores.

In the early 2000s, two of the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, came across Schmidt's work in the software industry. By 2001, the founders had recruited Schmidt to run the company, later appointing him to become the company's CEO and join Google's Board of Directors.

As TikTok faces a potential ban, various bidders, including Elon Musk and Larry Ellison, are seen as suitors to buy the platform. Netflix is a possible option among streaming giants, though the company has not historically pursued major acquisitions.

Explore how education shaped the world's wealthiest individuals. From Jeff Bezos' engineering degree to Elon Musk's short-lived PhD pursuit, and Mark

US President Donald Trump has shown support for Elon Musk potentially buying TikTok and proposed that the US government receive a 50% ownership stake