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Oracle Names Co-CEOs to Replace Safra Catz. The Stock Rises.

Sep 22, 2025 08:12:00 -0400 by Nate Wolf | #Technology

Current CEO Safra Catz becomes executive vice chair of the Oracle board. (Dreamstime)

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Oracle has promoted both Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia to the roles of CEO in a move that will see current Chief Executive Safra Catz become executive vice chair of the Oracle board.

The move signals Oracle’s continued focus on artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Magouyrk, 39, previously served as president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, the company’s fast-growing AI cloud provider. Sicilia, 54, was president of Oracle Industries, which provides enterprise customers with cloud applications embedded with AI, such as AI agents.

Oracle stock was up 5.5% to $325.53 on Monday.

“A few years ago, Clay and Mike committed Oracle’s Infrastructure and Applications businesses to AI—it’s paying off,” said Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison. “They are both proven leaders, and I am looking forward to spending the coming years working side-by-side with them.”

Catz will transition to a board role after 11 years as CEO and 26 years at Oracle. She will continue working closely with Ellison as executive vice chair, Ellison said.

Magouyrk and Sicilia will take over Oracle, which has recently found itself in a relative position of strength. The company revealed a spike in its backlog of contracted cloud services work last quarter. Oracle stock has gained 85% this year and 37% in September as of Friday’s close, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

The pair also take the reins as Oracle attempts to finalize a deal to take over TikTok in the U.S. A framework agreement calls for a U.S. consortium that includes Oracle to own 80% of a U.S. version of the app, which currently is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, The Wall Street Journal reported last week. Oracle would manage U.S. user data under the framework deal.

Many analysts had expected Magouyrk to become Catz’s successor, but the dual appointment was a surprise considering Sicilia was only promoted to his most recent role in June, said Gartner analyst Balaji Abbabatulla.

The company isn’t a stranger to having multiple chief executives, however. Catz and Mark Hurd both served as CEOs from 2014 until Hurd’s death in 2019.

“I suspect that Oracle is replicating that strategy albeit across lines of business instead of the distribution of responsibilities across enterprise functions,” said Abbabatulla.

Write to Nate Wolf at nate.wolf@barrons.com