Oracle's Larry Ellison says planned Nashville campus will be company's 'world headquarters'

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Oracle Corp.'s planned campus in Nashville, Tennessee, will serve as the business software giant's world headquarters, placing it in a city that's a center for the U.S. health care industry, CEO Larry Ellison said.

Ellison spoke about Oracle's plans for its Nashville offices during a conversation about health care technology with former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist at the Oracle Health Summit on Tuesday.

In 2021, a Tennessee panel approved $65 million in state incentives for Oracle, with the company planning to bring 8,500 jobs and an investment topping $1 billion to Nashville over a decade. Then-Mayor John Cooper’s office announced that the company, currently based in Austin, Texas, planned to build the new campus with 1.2 million square feet (111,400 square meters) of office space. In 2020, the Oracle announced it was moving its headquarters from its longtime home in Redwood City, California, to Texas.

Frist, a doctor and businessman, asked Ellison why Nashville was chosen. Ellison, whose company bought electronic medical records company Cerner in 2022, called the city “a health center.”

“We're moving this huge campus, which will ultimately be our world headquarters,” Ellison said. “We're moving that to Nashville.”

Ellison then joked that he “shouldn't have said that.”

According to the Nashville Health Care Council, Tennessee's capital city has more than 900 companies with 550,000 employees working in the health care industry. HCA Healthcare and Change Healthcare are among the large companies based in the growing city.

Ellison said Oracle wants to be part of a community where people want to live. He said the city “ticked all the boxes” in employee surveys.

“Nashville is a fabulous place to live,” Ellison said. “It's a great place to raise a family. It's got a unique and vibrant culture .... It's the center of the industry we're most concerned about, which is the health care industry.”

The Nashville mayor’s office said in 2021 that Oracle paid $254 million for 60 acres (24 hectares) in downtown Nashville and offered $175 million upfront for public infrastructure, including a pedestrian bridge over the Cumberland River, environmental cleanup, a sewer pump station and a riverfront park.

Ellison said plans for the riverfront campus include a community clinic, a concert venue, a hotel and a restaurant.