How Much Is Larry Ellison’s Social Security Check?
Written by
Laura Beck
Edited by
Brendan McGinley
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Larry Ellison is worth around $260 billion according to Forbes, making him one of the richest people on Earth. But even billionaires qualify for Social Security if they paid into the system during their working years. So what does Oracle’s co-founder actually receive from the government each month?
The answer might surprise you: probably between $5,000 and $5,300 monthly, which is essentially the same amount an upper-middle-class worker who maxed out their Social Security contributions every year would get.
The Maximum Benefit Ceiling
Social Security doesn’t scale with wealth. It bases benefits entirely on earnings subject to Social Security taxes, and there’s a cap on taxable earnings each year. In 2025, that cap sits at $176,100.
Ellison, born August 17, 1944, is now 81 years old. He co-founded Oracle in 1977 and has earned far above the Social Security taxable maximum every single year since then. But the system only counts income up to that annual cap, not beyond it.
That means a billionaire and a successful engineer who both hit the earnings cap for 35 years receive identical Social Security benefits.
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The Actual Numbers
The maximum possible Social Security benefit depends on when you start claiming. For 2025, the numbers break down as follows:
- Claiming at age 62: $2,831 per month
- Claiming at full retirement age (67): $4,018 per month
- Claiming at age 70: $5,108 per month
For 2026, the Social Security Administration says that someone who had retired at age 70 after accruing the maximum benefit would see their monthly claim rise from $5,108 to $5,251 monthly thanks to the 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) pushing it up. If, however, they were claiming the max for the first time in 2026, their initial payout would be $5,181. Very few people can max out the limit of contributions for 35 years or more, but Ellison is one of them.
Since Ellison is already past 70, if he chose to claim benefits at the optimal age, his monthly check would be at or very close to the maximum — currently around $5,108 for 2025 or $5,251 in 2026, depending on his exact claiming date. It’s worth noting that maxing out the IRS’s own benefits calculator returns a 2026 cap of $5,120, as does its quick calculator.
However, the truth may be that it’s even slightly higher. The Motley Fool calculates his earnings at $5,263, he’ll turn 82 in 2026, has hit the maximum contributions, and will still be working. And even that number might be a little low, since it’s predicated on the pre-COLA $5,181 benefit at age 70. Suffice it to say, Ellison is getting about five grand a month, or about 60,000 times his annual salary of $1. As per The Street, Oracle’s CEO derives all his wealth from stock and option awards.
Does His Wealth Matter?
Not for benefit calculations. Social Security eligibility depends on work credits (you need 40 credits, earned at a rate of up to four per year), while benefit amounts depend only on your earnings history up to the taxable maximum.
Ellison’s $250-300 billion net worth, his ownership stake in Oracle, his real estate holdings, his yacht collection — none of it factors into Social Security calculations. The system treats his earnings record identically to any other worker who maxed out contributions for over 35 years.
Social Security also doesn’t means-test benefits. You can be a billionaire and still collect your full benefit amount. The program was structured as social insurance where everyone who pays in gets benefits out, not as a welfare program with income restrictions.
The Math Behind Maximum Benefits
Social Security uses a formula based on your highest 35 years of inflation-adjusted earnings. It applies different percentages to portions of your average indexed monthly earnings to calculate your primary insurance amount.
For someone who maxed out earnings every year, that formula produces the maximum possible benefit. Claiming at 70 adds delayed retirement credits of 8% per year past full retirement age, boosting the benefit to its highest level, but it won’t keep climbing after that.
Only workers born in specific years qualify for each year’s exact maximum. The $5,108 figure for 2025 applies specifically to people born in 1955 who turn 70 this year. Ellison, born in 1944, would have received the maximum for his birth cohort when he turned 70.
Other Billionaires Get The Same
Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates — any billionaire who worked and paid Social Security taxes for 35-plus years at maximum levels qualifies for essentially identical benefits. The system caps at the top, creating an unusual situation where vastly different levels of wealth produce identical government retirement checks.
The average Social Security benefit for retired workers as of August 2025 is $2,008.31 monthly. Ellison gets roughly 2.5 times that amount because he maxed out contributions, but he doesn’t get 636,000 times more despite being worth 636,000 times a typical retiree.
That’s by design. Social Security provides a floor, not a ceiling, for retirement income. For most Americans, it represents a significant portion of retirement funding. For billionaires, it’s a rounding error that barely registers financially but demonstrates they’re still part of the same system as everyone else.
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