Larry Ellison has claimed the title of the world’s richest man for the first time, displacing Elon Musk, after an extraordinary surge in Oracle’s stock added more than $100 billion to his fortune in a single day.
Ellison’s wealth now sits between $393 billion and $405 billion, depending on valuation time, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes.
The 81-year-old co-founder of Oracle holds roughly 41% of the company, giving him direct exposure to its largest-ever market rally. Musk, whose fortune is largely tied to Tesla, slipped to second place with around $384–385 billion after a difficult year for the electric carmaker.
Oracle’s gains were driven by stunning quarterly results that revealed a 12% jump in revenue to $14.9 billion, cloud revenue growth of 28% to $7.2 billion, and an eye-catching 359% increase in future performance obligations, now standing at $455 billion.
The company also announced four multi-billion-dollar contracts, including with OpenAI, Nvidia, Meta, and AMD, signalling investor confidence in its strategy to challenge Amazon, Microsoft, and Google in the cloud race.
CEO Safra Catz told investors: “Infrastructure revenue is expected to grow from $18 billion to $144 billion within the next five years, far above Wall Street’s estimates.” Oracle has also committed 4.5 gigawatts of electricity to support OpenAI’s data centres and unveiled its Oracle AI Database, designed to run models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok directly on its infrastructure.
For Ellison, his wealth jumped by a record $101 billion on Wednesday alone, the largest single-day increase ever recorded by Bloomberg’s wealth tracker. Beyond Oracle, he owns 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanai, has revitalised the Indian Wells tennis tournament, and is backing the $500 billion Stargate AI infrastructure project in the United States.
Musk’s setback shows how fortunes can swing in volatile markets. Tesla shares have fallen 13–14% this year resulting from slowing demand, rising competition, and political eyes. Despite this, Musk still retains high stakes in Tesla, SpaceX, and other ventures, keeping him firmly in the race for future wealth leadership.
Larry Ellison, who has long been a central figure in Silicon Valley but usually overshadowed by others like Musk and Jeff Bezos, is now at the very top of the billionaire rankings.
