After control of TikTok in the United States was handed over to Larry Ellison, users began to leave the platform en masse. This occurred against a backdrop of accusations of censorship and pressure on content related to criticism of Israel.
Amid growing accusations of censorship on TikTok, users are increasingly choosing UpScrolled — an app developed by Palestinian Issam Hijazi, which is positioned as a social network free from censorship and the influence of major businessmen.
UpScrolled, founded by Issam Hijazi, quickly attracted attention and soon became one of the 15 most downloaded apps in the U.S., amassing hundreds of thousands of downloads in just a few days. Currently, the app ranks 13th in the American Play Store.
It is important to note that on September 10, 2025, Larry Ellison surpassed Elon Musk to become the richest person in the world, increasing his fortune by more than $100 billion due to a sharp rise in Oracle's stock following a successful report. His wealth grew by $101 billion, reaching $393 billion in just one day.
Larry Ellison was born in New York to a 19-year-old unmarried mother, Florence Spellman. His father, of Italian descent, was a U.S. Air Force pilot and was transferred to a new duty station before the mother was aware of the pregnancy. At nine months old, after an illness, he was given to his uncle and aunt in Chicago, where he was adopted by Lillian and Lewis Ellison. Larry did not know who his biological mother was and met her only at the age of 48.
Ellison grew up in Chicago, where he attended school and enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. However, after the death of his adoptive mother, he did not pass his exams and returned to Chicago, where he studied for a semester at the University of Chicago, familiarizing himself with computing technology. In 1964, at the age of 20, he moved to Northern California.
Career
In the early 1970s, he worked at Amdahl and Ampex, where one of his projects was the development of a database management system for the CIA called "Oracle."
Ellison was significantly influenced by an article by Edgar F. Codd, which is considered foundational for the relational data model. In 1977, he, along with two colleagues, founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL), which was renamed Relational Software Inc. in 1979, and then Oracle in 1982, in honor of their main product. The first version, Oracle v2, was released in 1979, and for marketing purposes, no version number was assigned.
In the 1980s, Oracle actively released new versions of its database management system. In 1986, the company went public and increased sales tenfold in three years, reaching $584 million. However, by 1990, Oracle faced difficulties, announcing losses and laying off hundreds of employees.
In September 2014, Larry Ellison stepped down as CEO of Oracle, having served in that role for nearly 38 years, but remained chairman of the board and took on the position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO), retaining control over the company's software and hardware development.
