Oracle’s Ellison Reveals $1 Billion Stake in Tesla

(Bloomberg) -- Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison has acquired a $1 billion stake in Tesla Inc., making him the carmaker’s second-biggest individual investor after his close friend Elon Musk.

The holding was confirmed in a regulatory filing Tuesday, less than two weeks after Ellison joined Tesla’s board. Shares of the company edged up 0.1 percent to close at $335.35.

Ellison, 74, indirectly owns 3 million Tesla shares through the Lawrence J. Ellison Revocable Trust, according to the filing. The 1.75 percent stake makes him the second-largest disclosed individual shareholder after Musk, the chief executive officer who owns about a fifth of the company, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Tesla announced Ellison’s appointment to the board on Dec. 28.

Tesla, emerging from a tumultuous year in which it struggled to meet production targets for its Model 3 sedan, has become one of the world’s most valuable automakers. Musk courted controversy in 2018, prompting the Securities and Exchange Commission to order greater board oversight after he tweeted in August that he had financing and investor support for a buyout at $420 a share.

The regulator said this and other claims by Musk were false and misleading and affected Tesla’s stock. Both he and the company agreed to pay $20 million penalties and added Ellison and human resources specialist Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as board members.

Ellison is the world’s ninth-richest person with a net worth of $51.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He went off-script during an Oracle meeting with analysts in October to announce that he had been building a personal stake in Tesla and that it was his second-largest holding. He criticized how the news media had covered Musk, whom he lauded for landing rockets and called a close friend.

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