Oracle stock ORCL fell more than 2% on Monday as investors weighed broader market pressure from higher oil prices and Treasury yields alongside concerns about the company’s AI infrastructure spending.
Credit markets are also showing signs of stress around loans linked to Oracle’s Project Jupiter data centres in New Mexico.
The debt has traded at stressed levels following an S&P downgrade that left the credit just above junk status.
Oracle shares were already under pressure after Alphabet’s cybersecurity unit, Mandiant, reported renewed exploitation of a vulnerability in Oracle’s PeopleSoft software.
The development added another risk factor for investors as the company continues to expand its AI infrastructure business.
PeopleSoft attacks add pressure on Oracle
Mandiant said Friday that the hacking group ShinyHunters had resumed “mass exploitation” of a vulnerability in Oracle’s PeopleSoft software, a Reuters report said.
The latest campaign reportedly targeted organisations that had implemented web application firewall rules but had not installed Oracle’s security update.
Mandiant said the activity affected dozens of systems worldwide across sectors including higher education, technology, healthcare, agriculture, transportation and government.
The earlier attacks occurred between May 27 and June 9 and primarily affected universities.
The first campaign took place before Oracle issued a security advisory on June 10, meaning no patch was available at the time.
The latest findings also followed claims by ShinyHunters that it had stolen FBI personnel data through a PeopleSoft vulnerability.
Reuters said it could not corroborate the claim, while the FBI said it was “aggressively investigating” the reported breach.
Project Jupiter highlights AI infrastructure risks
Oracle’s Project Jupiter has become a focal point for concerns about the financial risks associated with its rapid expansion in AI infrastructure.
The loans linked to the New Mexico data centres have traded at stressed levels following an S&P downgrade.
The credit-market weakness comes as Oracle carries significant debt while committing heavily to AI infrastructure.
Oracle’s contracted future revenue has reached $664 billion, while its debt is about 4.3 times EBITDA, compared with less than one times for Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet.
The company has also received $11.4 billion in customer prepayments with what its 10-Q describes as a significant financing component.
Michael Burry has argued that the accounting treatment of those payments could increase reported future cloud revenue while the associated financing costs are recorded as interest expense.
Burry has warned that large AI infrastructure commitments could result in significant write-offs in 2028 or 2029 if the assets do not generate the expected returns.
Larry Ellison pledges additional shares for WBD deal
The company’s financial exposure is also being watched alongside the personal financial commitments of executive chairman and CTO Larry Ellison.
An Oracle proxy filing disclosed that Ellison had pledged 67 million additional Oracle shares as collateral for personal loans compared with a year earlier, representing a 19% increase from 2025.
The pledged shares were worth about $9.2 billion based on Oracle’s $137.10 closing price on Friday and represented roughly 36% of Ellison’s total holdings.
Oracle generally prohibits officers and directors from pledging company shares as collateral for personal loans, with Ellison the sole exception.
The pledges come as Ellison has helped finance Paramount Skydance’s planned $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
The Ellison family has committed $47 billion in equity funding for the transaction, with about $24 billion coming from three Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.
Paramount Skydance, led by Ellison’s son David Ellison, has moved closer to completing the Warner Bros. Discovery transaction after settling litigation with 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America that sought to block the deal.
Oracle defends long-term AI investment
Oracle’s AI expansion comes as the company seeks to position itself as a major provider of computing infrastructure for AI workloads.
Burry has questioned whether the economics of these investments could eventually lead to large write-offs.
He has pointed to Oracle’s debt levels, customer prepayments and substantial AI commitments as factors investors should monitor.
Oracle has offered a different view of the useful life of its AI infrastructure.
Co-CEO Clay Magouyrk said GPUs renewed or resold during the latest quarter generated a 20% premium despite most being four years old or older.
He said Oracle sees “a long useful life with increasing value.”
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