List: Larry Ellison surges to world’s No. 2 billionaire on AI boom, topples Zuckerberg

Larry Ellison has achieved a historic milestone, overtaking Mark Zuckerberg to become the world’s second-richest tech tycoon — and the second-richest person globally — the latest Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows. 

This remarkable ascent cements Ellison’s position as a central figure among the tech elite, whose influence now thoroughly dominates the upper echelons of the global rich list.

The exact net worth figures may fluctuate depending on stock price movements and reporting dates (Sources: Bloomberg | Forbes)

The catalyst for his jump: Oracle’s high-profile AI investments in Europe and a powerful earnings report that sent the company’s stock price soaring nearly 90% in just twelve weeks. 

With this rally, Ellison — co-founder, chairman, and chief technology officer of Oracle — added $59 billion to his fortune in 2025 alone, outpacing Zuckerberg’s gain of $43.4 billion over the same period.

On Tuesday, Oracle shares ended up 2.5% at close to $235 per share as investors responded to a five-year, $3 billion investment plan in Germany and the Netherlands aimed at expanding Oracle’s cloud and AI capabilities. 

This single trading session boosted Ellison’s net worth by almost $5 billion, surpassing Zuckerberg, whose fortune dipped by $3.6 billion following a slight dip in Meta’s stock price, as per Bloomberg.

This leap exemplifies how tech titans now rule the world’s richest rankings. 

Eight of the Top 10 individuals on Bloomberg’s list are tech moguls, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and Google co-founder Larry Page. 

The common denominator: their wealth is tied tightly to the explosive growth and valuations of tech giants whose services and platforms have become essential to virtually every corner of the global economy.

A few core factors help explain this tech dominance:

Market valuation multiplication: The market puts extremely high valuations on leading technology firms, especially those tied to artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and data infrastructure.

Compound network effects: Unlike traditional businesses, tech firms can scale rapidly across borders, attracting more customers and reinforcing their market position the bigger they become.

Founder stakes: Many tech billionaires, including Ellison (who owns about 40% of Oracle), have retained large equity stakes in their companies, making their net worth highly sensitive to share price movements, according to Fortune.

Elon Musk of Tesla, Space X and X, continues to lead as the world’s richest person with $358 billion, but the gap between him and Ellison now seems narrower than ever. 

Meanwhile, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Meta’s Zuckerberg have slipped to third and fourth, a reminder of how quickly fortunes can shift in the volatile tech sector.

Ellison’s rise is not just a personal triumph but a sign of the times: technology visionaries are the new royalty of global capitalism, accumulating influence at a pace and scale that dwarfs previous generations of business leaders. 

As artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and digital platforms continue to shape the global economy, the super-rich will likely remain overwhelmingly tech-powered — for now, at least.