Larry Ellison overtakes Elon Musk as world’s richest man

Elon Musk has been dethroned as the world’s wealthiest individual, with Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison soaring to the top spot following a record-breaking stock rally.

Ellison’s fortune jumped by $101 billion to $393 billion after Oracle’s blockbuster earnings sent its shares climbing 41% on Wednesday — the company’s biggest single-day gain since 1992, according to Bloomberg. That leap pushed him past Musk, whose wealth is now estimated at $385 billion.

Oracle’s meteoric rise was fuelled by massive demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure. CEO Safra Catz said the company had inked four multibillion-dollar contracts in the last quarter, with more deals expected soon.

“Oracle has become a key provider of infrastructure that powers AI companies’ enormous demands for computing power,” Catz said, highlighting the company’s growing dominance in the cloud and database markets.

The software giant’s position at the centre of the AI boom has been crucial to its success. In July, Oracle struck a deal to provide OpenAI with 4.5 gigawatts of electricity to support its operations. Analysts remain bullish — Ben Reitzes of Melius Research described Oracle’s $455 billion AI services backlog as “staggering,” adding, “We’ll be talking about this one for a long time.”

Ellison, Oracle’s largest shareholder, could further widen his lead if the rally continues. The company, now valued near $700 billion, is inching toward the trillion-dollar milestone. Bloomberg noted that Ellison’s one-day wealth surge is the biggest ever recorded on its Billionaires Index.

This year alone, Oracle’s stock has more than doubled, making Ellison a central figure in the AI race. “Microsoft and Oracle really aren’t software companies anymore, they are AI cloud infrastructure stocks that happen to sell software too,” Reitzes observed.

Musk, who first claimed the wealth crown in 2021, has lost it several times before — to LVMH’s Bernard Arnault in 2021 and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2024 — but always managed to reclaim the title.

Ellison’s path to the top 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, played a key role in revitalising the Indian Wells tennis tournament, and maintains close ties with Donald Trump.

With AI propelling Oracle to new heights, Ellison appears poised not only to maintain his place as the world’s richest person but also to cement his legacy as a major force in the tech industry’s future.