“Oracle is 47 years old. Larry still has the same drive, the same vision. And the company has never been financially stronger than today.”
Christophe Negrier, France CEO, had boasted about it last November, in the wake of the AI World event. The company had indeed rolled out of a largely profitable year ($12.4 billion in earnings). And its order book stood at an all-time high (well over $300 billion), with the Stargate project looming in the background.
This year, however, was also the first in more than 30 years to end with negative cash flow (-$394 million). The result of a sharp rise in capex, which more than tripled over the year to nearly $22 billion.
In addition, for fiscal 2026 there was an unprecedented restructuring plan of around $1.6 billion. There was also debt, which had just surpassed $100 billion.
30 000 postes : d’où vient cette estimation ?
Since then, the order book has filled even further (over $500 billion). And Oracle continues to generate higher profits ($3.7 billion in its latest fiscal quarter). Yet debt has crossed another threshold, now standing above $150 billion. This is attributed in particular to projects in Texas ($23 billion), New Mexico ($18 billion), and Wisconsin ($15 billion) with Vantage Data Centers. BNP Paribas and Société Générale are involved. As for the restructuring plan, its envelope has been raised to $2.1 billion.
In this context, one estimate became apparent: Oracle would cut 30,000 jobs. It is in fact the high end of a range TD Cowen had disclosed in January.
The investment bank had spoken of 20,000 to 30,000 jobs, for $8 to $10 billion in savings. It estimated that Oracle’s commitments on the infrastructure front would cost at least $156 billion, to say the least.
This estimate, combined with market doubts about OpenAI’s ability to honor its $1.4 billion commitments, led several American banks to distance themselves from Oracle’s datacenter projects, TD Cowen added, also pointing to a certain reticence among Asian banks.
Les profils (très) seniors, pas épargnés
This week, the ramp-up took shape. On LinkedIn and beyond, a large number of Oracle employees testified about it. Including senior profiles. There was a software development director who had been with the company for 14 years, an ONSR (Oracle National Secure Region) director who had been there for 30 years, a Security Alert Manager with 33 years of tenure, and more.
The volume of account deactivations on the internal Slack corroborates the 30,000-job estimate. The RHS (Revenue and Health Sciences) and SVOS (SaaS and Virtual Operations Services) divisions appear to be particularly affected. As well as the NetSuite development center in India. The wave does not seem to have—so far?—reached Europe.
As of the end of May 2025, Oracle employed roughly 162,000 people. This new, massive workforce reduction does not seem to be tied to performance considerations. It appears to reflect a shift toward redirecting investments toward infrastructure…
* OpenAI has nonetheless wrapped up a funding round of $122 billion, including $50 billion from Amazon, $30 billion from NVIDIA, and an equal amount from SoftBank. The stock market is in its sights, possibly for this year.
