FOLLOW US

Oracle Corp. has priced a colossal $18 billion investment-grade bond offering, one of the year’s most eye-catching corporate debt moves as the tech titan races to keep pace with soaring demand for artificial intelligence.

The sale ranks as the second-largest U.S. corporate bond deal of 2025, eclipsed only by Mars Inc.’s $26 billion offering in March, according to Dealogic.

Advised by Freshfields US LLP, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP guiding the underwriters, Oracle structured the deal into seven tranches, with maturities stretching from five years to 40 years and interest rates spanning 4.45% to 6.1%, filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission revealed Thursday.

Fueling Growth, Paying Down Debt

Oracle told regulators it intends to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes—from paying down debt to acquisitions, capital expenditures, or even dividends. The move dovetails with its accelerated spending on cloud infrastructure and AI expansion, areas seen as critical to its long-term competitiveness.

The bond sale highlights how Big Tech’s hunger for capital mirrors the arms race in AI, with Oracle pushing to expand its data centers and services even as rivals scale aggressively.

Oracle’s Expanding Role in TikTok Saga

The financing comes as Oracle emerges as a pivotal player in the ongoing TikTok divestiture drama. Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order approving a plan to transfer TikTok’s U.S. operations to a new American-controlled joint venture.

The order requires TikTok’s parent, ByteDance Ltd., to slash its stake to under 20% while mandating that U.S. user data be stored in an Oracle-run cloud environment.

On Monday, the White House confirmed that Oracle would be entrusted with safeguarding personal data of U.S. TikTok users, effectively casting the company as a gatekeeper in one of the most politically sensitive tech deals of the decade.

Rumors also swirled that Oracle could join forces with Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz in taking a strategic stake in TikTok.

Legal Advisers

While full counsel details were not immediately available, filings note that Freshfields US LLP advised Oracle directly, while Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP represented the underwriters.

With this blockbuster bond issuance, Oracle has firmly placed itself at the nexus of Wall Street’s appetite for debt, Silicon Valley’s AI race, and Washington’s geopolitical tech battles.