Excerpt: Larry Ellison has become the world’s richest person as Oracle’s $101 billion stock surge pushed his net worth to $393 billion.
Elon Musk has lost his position as the world’s richest person to Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison following an unprecedented jump in Ellison’s wealth, fuelled by Oracle’s stunning earnings performance.
According to Bloomberg, Ellison’s net worth soared by $101 billion to $393 billion after Oracle’s strong quarterly earnings report on Tuesday, surpassing Musk’s estimated $385 billion fortune. Oracle shares skyrocketed by 41% on Wednesday, marking the company’s biggest single-day gain since 1992.
Oracle’s CEO, Safra Catz, revealed that the company had signed four multibillion-dollar contracts with customers during the quarter and expects to secure several more in the coming months.
“Oracle has become a key provider of infrastructure that powers AI companies’ enormous demands for computing power,” Catz said, underscoring the company’s growing dominance in cloud services and database software.
Oracle’s role in powering the AI revolution has been a major driver of its success. In July, the company announced a deal to supply ChatGPT’s parent company, OpenAI, with 4.5 gigawatts of electricity to support its AI operations. Ben Reitzes, an analyst at Melius Research, described Oracle’s $455 billion AI services backlog as “staggering” and said, “We’ll be talking about this one for a long time.”
Ellison, Oracle’s largest individual shareholder, is poised to extend his lead as the world’s richest person if the company’s stock continues its upward momentum. Oracle, now valued just under $700 billion, is on track to potentially cross the $1 trillion mark in market capitalisation. Bloomberg reports that Ellison’s leap in wealth represents the “biggest one-day increase ever recorded” on its Billionaires Index.
Oracle’s remarkable rise comes amid a broader AI-driven tech boom, which has seen Nvidia become the world’s most valuable company with a valuation above $4 trillion, while Microsoft briefly joined the $4 trillion club. “Microsoft and Oracle really aren’t software companies anymore, they are AI cloud infrastructure stocks that happen to sell software too,” Reitzes noted.
This year alone, Oracle’s stock has surged by 103%, placing Ellison at the centre of the global AI race. Musk, who first claimed the top spot in 2021, has previously lost it twice in 2021 to LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault and again in 2024 to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos but had managed to regain his lead each time.
Ellison’s journey to the pinnacle of wealth began in 1977 when he co-founded Oracle after dropping out of college. Now 81, he owns 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lana’i and is credited with reviving the Indian Wells tennis tournament in California. Known for his close ties with President Donald Trump, Ellison has appeared alongside him at several White House technology events and has been linked to potential acquisitions, including a previous interest in TikTok.
If Oracle’s rally continues, analysts suggest Ellison could extend his dominance in the global wealth rankings while cementing Oracle’s status as a powerhouse in the AI-driven future.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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