Lifting the lid on Jolin Zhu, the mysterious young Chinese woman who is the sixth wife of billionaire Oracle founder, Larry Ellison. -- Photo: AFP
BEIJING (SCMP): Gossip about the world’s third richest man and Oracle chairman Larry Ellison’s new wife, Chinese native Jolin Zhu, emerged on mainland social media after her identity was revealed.
On November 23, the University of Michigan’s booster group, known as Champions Circle, published a post online announcing their success in securing a multimillion-dollar deal with the star quarterback Bryce Underwood for its school football team.
In the announcement it thanked “Larry and his wife Jolin” who provided “invaluable guidance and financial resources”, and stated that Jolin is a Michigan alumni.
Ellison, chairman and co-founder of software giant Oracle Corporation, had not publicly announced Zhu’s identity as his wife, despite having been spotted watching sports games together with her many times since 2018, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Zhu, whose original Chinese name is Zhu Keren, remained mysterious before and after the revelation.
The 33-year-old Chinese native, who is 47 years younger than Ellison, was reported to have graduated with a bachelor’s degree in International Studies from the University of Michigan in 2012.
Jolin Zhu and Larry Ellison have been photographed together at sporting events. -- Photo: Weibo
Gossip on mainland social media platforms pieced together her teenage life via revelations from users who claimed to be her acquaintance.
Zhu studied at Northeast Yucai Foreign Language School, in northeastern China’s Liaoning province, during her junior secondary school years.
The school was co-founded by the prestigious Northeast Yucai School and Japan’s Kansai Language School in 1998, and boasted its foreign language education that enabled students to be admitted by overseas universities.
Zhu did not go to the senior department of her secondary school as many of her schoolmates did, but instead went to Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Massachusetts, a move considered by Chinese online observers as an indicator of her family’s wealth.
Unverified sources shared contesting information about Zhu’s family background.
One said her father is the CEO of a Liaoning medical device company with family assets that “easily exceed 100 million yuan”. Others said her family was from an “average middle-class” background.
Online observers called Zhu “the next Wendi Deng”, the ex-wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, a nod to the distinct Chinese millennial nature of her unconventional English name.
33-year-old Zhu is almost half a century younger than her billionaire husband.-- Photo: Weibo
“Jolin”, is a reminder of Taiwanese pop singer Jolin Tsai.
Other netizens have expressed wonder that Zhu and Ellison had “couple face”, a traditional Chinese saying meaning that the wife and husband look alike.
It is unknown how Zhu met Ellison, but she was reported to have briefly lived in a rented flat in Redwood Shores, where Oracle was based before 2020, following her graduation.
She is Ellison’s sixth wife. The 80-year-old was reported to have separated with his fifth wife, Nikita Kahn, in 2016 and finalised their divorce in 2020.
Ellison is a famous fan of Japanese culture. He even modelled one of his properties after a 16th-century Japanese emperor’s palace.
Zhu, now a US citizen, is registered to vote from the same address as Ellison – a vast 33-bedroom, 38-bathroom estate in Florida. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
