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The Briefing: Oracle’s Star-Late

The Briefing
We learned a few interesting things from Oracle's earnings report today. First, CEO Safra Catz dropped the news that Stargate, the splashy, $500 billion joint venture between Oracle, SoftBank and OpenAI to build artificial intelligence data centers, is "not yet formed." The tidbit from Oracle is another sign Stargate is off to a slow start after Bloomberg reported last month that SoftBank hadn't yet begun the formal fundraising process for the project, in part because of economic volatility stemming from the Trump administration's tariffs.  Stargate may be stalled for a bit, but Oracle's cloud computing business—the data center servers it rents to customers—is not. It was up 50% in the fiscal year ended May 31, and Oracle expects it to jump 70% in the current fiscal year, as the company shows what Catz called "dramatically higher" revenue growth rates. 
Jun 11, 2025

The Briefing


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We learned a few interesting things from Oracle's earnings report today. First, CEO Safra Catz dropped the news that Stargate, the splashy, $500 billion joint venture between Oracle, SoftBank and OpenAI to build artificial intelligence data centers, is "not yet formed." The tidbit from Oracle is another sign Stargate is off to a slow start after Bloomberg reported last month that SoftBank hadn't yet begun the formal fundraising process for the project, in part because of economic volatility stemming from the Trump administration's tariffs. 

Stargate may be stalled for a bit, but Oracle's cloud computing business—the data center servers it rents to customers—is not. It was up 50% in the fiscal year ended May 31, and Oracle expects it to jump 70% in the current fiscal year, as the company shows what Catz called "dramatically higher" revenue growth rates. 

Those growth rates are sensational compared to those of Oracle competitors like Amazon Web Services, which saw its revenue increase 19% in 2024. But Oracle remains a pipsqueak in cloud computing, with only about a tenth of AWS' annual revenue.      

Another takeaway from the Oracle earnings report is that Larry Ellison, the company's chair and chief technology officer, has not lost his capacity for hyperbole and self-promotion at the age of 80. "We will build and operate more cloud infrastructure data centers than all of our cloud infrastructure competitors combined," Ellison boasted on an investor call today. Ellison didn't put a time frame on when that would transpire; it could be when the heat death of the universe is about to happen, for all we know. But based on Oracle's current cloud revenues and capital expenditures, it's safe to say it hasn't yet exceeded the cloud computing capacity of all its rivals.

Hollywood is filled with gifted storytellers. Even its lawyers can spin a good yarn. In a new copyright-infringement lawsuit filed against Midjourney, a San Francisco–based AI startup, lawyers from Disney and Universal describe it as a "bottomless pit of plagiarism" and "the quintessential copyright free rider." 

Is it, though? Midjourney is a comparatively small player in AI, dwarfed by the likes of OpenAI, Google and Meta Platforms. More likely, it is the most opportune target for Disney and Universal: The studios want to appease industry creatives, who fear AI and want to see their corporate bosses draw blood. And by suing Midjourney, the studios have the opportunity to look like they're heeding their employees' complaints without really going after the companies causing the bulk of the disruption. 

The studio might have tried suing the larger companies posing more substantial threats, but that would put them up against far bigger opponents in the courtroom—and possibly against companies with substantial ties to Hollywood outside AI. Facing off against Midjourney offers a better chance at a happy ending—well, at least for the lawyers and their bosses.—Abram Brown 

  • Mistral AI, the French AI startup, is on track to make more than $100 million in revenue this year, its CEO said
  • Elon Musk said on X that he regretted some of his incendiary posts about President Donald Trump last week. The apology came after Musk spoke to Trump and Vice President JD Vance by phone, according to The Wall Street Journal.
  • Musk said Tesla robotaxis will "tentatively" begin offering their first rides to the public in Austin, Texas, on June 22.

AI Agenda by Stephanie Palazzolo separates hype from reality and explains how AI is transforming industries. The 4x/week newsletter details the innovation and disruption happening in AI, from the AI startup funding frenzy to the major technological breakthroughs that will set the agenda for decades to come. Sign up today.

AI Agenda by Stephanie Palazzolo separates hype from reality and explains how AI is transforming industries. The 4x/week newsletter details the innovation and disruption happening in AI, from the AI startup funding frenzy to the major technological breakthroughs that will set the agenda for decades to come. Sign up today.

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