After Israeli billionaire Larry Ellison took control of TikTok's American division as a result of a deal with Oracle, many users began to leave the platform en masse.
Amid growing accusations of censorship regarding content that criticizes Israel, more users are switching to the alternative app UpScrolled. This app, developed by Palestinian Issam Hijazi, is positioned as a social network free from censorship and the influence of big businessmen.
UpScrolled, founded by Hijazi, quickly gained attention against the backdrop of dissatisfaction caused by TikTok's actions. It has already entered the top 15 most downloaded apps in the U.S., with downloads reaching hundreds of thousands in just a few days. The app currently ranks 13th in the American Play Store.
It is worth noting that on September 10, 2025, Larry Ellison surpassed Elon Musk to take the top spot on the list of the world's richest people. His fortune grew by more than $100 billion due to the rapid rise in Oracle's stock following a strong financial report. In one day, Ellison's wealth increased by $101 billion, reaching $393 billion.
Larry Ellison was born in New York to a 19-year-old unmarried woman, Florence Spellman. His father was a U.S. Air Force pilot of Italian descent who was transferred overseas before his mother learned of the pregnancy. When Larry contracted pneumonia at nine months old, his mother, unable to cope with the care, gave him to be raised by his uncle and aunt in Chicago. Larry was adopted by Lillian Spellman Ellison and Lewis Ellison, and he did not meet his biological mother until he was 48 years old.
Growing up in Chicago, Ellison attended local schools and enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After his adoptive mother passed away, he did not take exams after his sophomore year. Spending the summer in Northern California with a friend, Chuck Weiss, he returned to Chicago and studied for a semester at the University of Chicago, where he was first introduced to computing technology. In 1964, at the age of 20, he moved to Northern California.
Career
In the early 1970s, Ellison worked at Amdahl and Ampex, where he developed a database management system for the CIA, which he named "Oracle".
He was greatly influenced by Edgar F. Codd's work "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks," considered foundational in the field of relational databases. Together with two colleagues from Ampex, he founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL) in 1977, which was renamed Relational Software Inc. in 1979 and then Oracle in 1982, named after its main product—Oracle Database. Ellison aimed to make his DBMS compatible with IBM System R, but IBM refused to provide the source code, making this impossible. The first version, Oracle v2, was released in 1979.
In the 1980s, Oracle actively released new versions of its DBMS. In 1986, the company's shares began trading on the stock market, and within three years, sales grew to $584 million. However, in 1990, Oracle faced serious difficulties and announced losses, leading to mass layoffs.
In September 2014, Ellison stepped down as CEO of Oracle, having served in that position for nearly 38 years since the company's founding, but remained chairman of the board and chief technology officer (CTO). In this role, he continues to oversee the development of the company's software and hardware.
