Thanks to Oracle’s meteoric rise following an impressive earnings report, Larry Ellison has just surpassed Elon Musk to become the richest person on the planet. Oracle’s rise in the AI field is the main driver of this spectacular growth.
Since 1977, after dropping out of college, Larry Ellison (81) has co-founded Oracle and now owns 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lana’i. He is also known for reviving the Indian Wells tennis tournament in California, which is known as the “fifth Grand Slam”. Ellison also has a close relationship with President Donald Trump and was once considered a potential candidate to buy TikTok.
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Co-founded in 1977 in Santa Clara, California by Larry Ellison, who remains executive chairman, Oracle is the world’s fourth-largest software company by market capitalization as of 2025.
Larry Ellison has just dethroned the richest person in the world
On Tuesday evening (September 9) local time, after Oracle announced its quarterly business results that exceeded expectations, the company’s stock price skyrocketed. According to Bloomberg, Ellison’s fortune increased by $101 billion, reaching $393 billion, surpassing Musk’s net worth of $385 billion. Bloomberg also noted that this was “the biggest one-day gain ever recorded” by their billionaire index. The index will be updated after the market closes on Wednesday (September 10).
The strong growth comes from growing demand for Oracle’s data centers from AI customers. CEO Safra Catz said Oracle signed four multibillion-dollar contracts during the quarter and expects to sign more in the coming months. In July, Oracle announced a deal to provide 4.5 gigawatts of power to OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, to power its AI software, further cementing Oracle’s position as a critical infrastructure provider to meet the huge demand for computing power from AI companies.
Oracle shares were up 40% as of 11 a.m. ET in New York on Wednesday, a rare gain for a company with a market value of nearly $700 billion, ranking 13th on the market at Tuesday’s close. Oracle shares have surged 103% this year on the back of the AI boom.
Elon Musk took the title of the world’s richest person for the first time in 2021. Despite being dethroned twice before, first by LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault in 2021 and then by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2024, Musk has maintained the title for the past few years. His wealth comes primarily from investments in Tesla and SpaceX.
Elon Musk has held the number 1 position for many years in a row
Oracle’s rise in AI technology has contributed to the recent wave of tech growth that has also propelled Nvidia to become the world’s most valuable company, with a valuation of more than $4 trillion. Microsoft has also reached that level. The eight most valuable stocks in the S&P 500 are all tech stocks, all involved in building the future powered by AI.
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