$100b wealth surge: How Larry Ellison briefly overtook Elon Musk as the world’s richest

Larry Ellison, Oracle’s 81-year-old co-founder and chair, saw his fortune swell by more than $100 billion in a single day — one of the largest wealth jumps ever recorded. The surge briefly propelled him past Tesla CEO Elon Musk, making him the world’s richest person with an estimated net worth of $393 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.

Ellison briefly overtook Musk on Wednesday before slipping back behind him by market close. His net worth spiked after Oracle — the software giant he co-founded and still owns a 41% stake in — reported blockbuster earnings.

Shares surged more than 40% in early trading, at one point valuing Oracle at about $960 billion (£707bn) and Ellison’s stake at $393 billion, eclipsing Musk’s $384 billion fortune. But the lead was short-lived. Oracle closed 36% higher at $328, leaving Ellison with $378 billion — just shy of Musk’s total.

Both men remain comfortably ahead of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

Ellison, less of a household name than Musk, has long been a force in Silicon Valley. He co-founded Oracle in the 1970s after landing a CIA contract to build a database system — a project that became the foundation of the company. Over the decades, Oracle evolved into a global software giant, serving Fortune 500 firms and expanding into cloud computing.

The AI revolution has supercharged Oracle’s business. Quarterly revenues hit $14.9 billion, with cloud infrastructure soaring 55% year-on-year. More striking was its $455 billion in future contracts — a 359% jump from last year — as demand for AI computing power skyrocketed.

Oracle has positioned itself as a backbone of AI infrastructure, powering workloads for OpenAI, Meta, Nvidia, AMD, ByteDance, and even Musk’s own AI startup, xAI. Analysts say this makes Oracle a critical “picks and shovels” supplier in the AI gold rush, competing with Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

Outside tech, Ellison is famous for his opulent lifestyle — mega-yachts, private jets, multiple marriages, and even ownership of the Hawaiian island of Lanai. He has also become increasingly influential in US politics.

While Ellison’s wealth surged, Musk’s grip on the billionaire crown weakened. Tesla shares have fallen about 14% in 2025, weighed down by slowing EV demand and investor unease over Musk’s political stances. His fortune hovered at $384 billion, leaving him only a whisker ahead once Oracle’s stock cooled.

At one point Wednesday, Ellison’s Oracle stake hit nearly $400 billion, firmly ahead of Musk. But as shares eased, Musk reclaimed the top spot — with both men trading the title of world’s richest in real time.

The showdown highlights a shift in the tech wealth story: the biggest fortunes are now being built not from flashy AI applications, but from the infrastructure powering them. Ellison’s record-breaking gain underscores Oracle’s reinvention as an AI backbone — and shows how the AI gold rush is reshaping not just industries, but the billionaire rankings themselves.