Oracle was reportedly planning a fresh round of job cuts beginning in September as the company shifts its spending priorities. However, increasing the scale of its planned job cuts has left the company struggling financially.
The tech giant aimed to reduce spending across all teams, signalling that it was rapidly attempting to reprioritise its previous capital expenditure structure. Oracle expected layoffs to reduce payroll costs, allowing it to shift the allocated capital to the large AI projects it has undertaken.
In a recent SEC regulatory filing, Oracle mentioned its layoffs, calling it a “restructuring plan.” The company’s job cuts are estimated to cost around $2.8 billion now, largely because of severance payments.
Oracle’s statement read, “The total estimated restructuring costs associated with the 2026 restructuring plan are up to $2.1 billion as of August 31, 2026. Subsequent to August 31, 2026, our management supplemented the 2026 restructuring plan by approximately $700 million to reflect additional actions that we expect to take.”
The company, which used to focus on cloud storage, has now expanded into building infrastructure for AI training. ChatGPT maker OpenAI signed a 300 billion, 5-year contract with Oracle to buy computing power. xAI uses Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to run its Grok models for businesses.
The company’s aggressive fundraising plan to meet demand from its largest customers, including Nvidia, Meta and TikTok, has so far included bond sales, debt and equity funding.
Its latest move involves Chairman Ellison, who owns about 40 per cent of Oracle’s stock. Ellison has adopted a trading plan that allows him to sell up to 50 million shares of Oracle stock till October 24, 2026. This is expected to generate around $7.5 billion to $8.75 billion depending on share price fluctuations.
In February, the company announced plans to raise up to $50 billion through a combination of debt and equity financing. In September 2025, the company sold $18 billion in bonds.
The aggressive debt-fueled expansion is concerning, as only a few major customers account for the billions of dollars it spends on AI infrastructure.
