Data grab

The Ellison family—through **Oracle** (Larry) and **Paramount Skydance** (David)—now controls a massive pool of **behavioral and user data** that's gold for AI training, personalization, and prediction.

Here's the breakdown (as of late February 2026):

- **TikTok US** (170–200 million users): Oracle holds a 15% stake in the new US joint venture (alongside Silver Lake and MGX; ByteDance keeps ~20%). Oracle stores all US user data on its secure cloud servers, oversees data security/governance, and retrains the recommendation algorithm using American user data. This includes precise location tracking (updated policy), interactions with AI tools, prompts, scrolls, watches, pauses, likes, and engagement signals—some of the richest **behavioral data** on attention and preferences anywhere. Oracle explicitly accesses and uses this for algorithm retraining, with firewalls against foreign access.

- **Streaming & entertainment empires** (Paramount + Warner Bros. Discovery merger, signed Feb 2026, expected close Q3 2026): The ~$110–111B deal combines Paramount+ (millions of subscribers) with HBO Max/Max, CBS, CNN, and vast content libraries. These platforms collect intimate viewing data: what you binge, skip, rewind, search for, or abandon; demographic profiles; purchase-linked habits via ads/subscriptions. Combined, they reach hundreds of millions, generating detailed **engagement and consumption patterns** at scale—perfect for training AI on human behavior, sentiment, trends, and even predictive modeling (e.g., what content drives emotions or buys).

- **Oracle's broader data ecosystem**: Beyond media, Oracle powers US government clouds (DoD, Energy, classified networks), healthcare (via Cerner), finance, and massive enterprise datasets. It hosts data for giants like OpenAI (huge $300B+ cloud deal for AI training/inference), banks, and more. This creates a flywheel: media/TikTok behavioral data feeds Oracle's AI infrastructure, improving models that serve government, enterprise, and commercial clients.

**Why this is the real prize**: Traditional media is declining, but **behavioral data** is evergreen fuel for AI. It reveals what grabs attention before users even realize it—far more valuable than raw server logs. Oracle can anonymize/aggregate this to train better recommendation systems, targeted ads, predictive AI, or even surveillance-style tools (Larry has publicly endorsed constant recording/AI monitoring for "better behavior").

Even if the media merger faces debt issues or antitrust hurdles (still pending approvals), the data access is already locked in via TikTok/Oracle ties and streaming ops. Critics call it a privacy/surveillance power grab; supporters see it as smart vertical integration for American AI dominance.

In short: The Ellisons aren't just buying screens—they're buying the detailed map of how hundreds of millions think, feel, watch, and act, all feeding straight into Oracle's AI empire. Generational data play.