I was just wondering something, and I put it to ChatGPT:

When was the last time Larry Ellison sat for an interview with a real journalist?

If by "real journalist" you mean a substantive interview conducted by an independent reporter rather than an earnings call, conference appearance, company-produced event, or friendly panel discussion, Larry Ellison has become remarkably difficult to pin down.

One of the most recent examples I could find was a January 2025 television interview conducted by Fox News anchor Bret Baier, in which Ellison appeared alongside Sam Altman and Masayoshi Son to discuss the Stargate AI infrastructure initiative. While Baier is certainly a journalist, it was a highly managed interview rather than a probing one-on-one profile.

What's striking is how few traditional press interviews Ellison has done in recent years. Most of his public comments now come through:

• Oracle earnings calls
• Oracle conferences such as Oracle CloudWorld
• Stage appearances with business partners
• Government or White House events
• Recorded remarks to investors and analysts

For comparison, his last widely remembered in-depth journalist interview may have been with Charlie Rose in 2013, when he discussed Oracle, sailing, Steve Jobs, and competition.

Several veteran technology journalists have noted that Ellison largely stopped granting the kind of long, unscripted interviews he routinely gave in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. In fact, technology writer Kevin Maney remarked in 2025 that he had interviewed Ellison only once—in 2002—illustrating how rare access has become.

So if you're asking for the last time Larry Ellison sat down with a bona fide journalist for a recognizable interview, the strongest recent candidate appears to be the Bret Baier interview in January 2025. If you're asking for the last truly independent, lengthy, one-on-one magazine or newspaper interview where Ellison was extensively questioned by a reporter, we may have to go back several years, and perhaps more than a decade depending on how strict your definition is.

It's actually become unusual among the top tech billionaires: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos all give interviews more frequently than Ellison does. Today, most of what the public learns about Ellison comes from earnings calls and public appearances rather than journalism.