Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison has become the world’s richest individual, surpassing Elon Musk, after a dramatic surge in Oracle’s share price boosted his net worth by $101 billion, bringing his total to $393 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. Musk now sits at $385 billion.
The shift in rankings came after Oracle’s earnings report on Tuesday revealed strong demand for its cloud infrastructure services, sending the company’s stock soaring 41% on Wednesday, its largest single-day gain since 1992.
Oracle CEO Safra Catz announced that the company had secured four multibillion-dollar contracts in the past quarter and expects to close more in the months ahead.
“We’ll be talking about this one for a long time,” said Ben Reitzes of Melius Research, describing Oracle’s $455 billion AI services backlog as “staggering.”
The company has rapidly become a major player in AI infrastructure, joining the ranks of Microsoft and Nvidia.
In July, Oracle signed a deal to supply 4.5 gigawatts of electricity to OpenAI for its energy-intensive AI operations.
Ellison, Oracle’s largest individual shareholder, directly benefited from the stock rally.
The company’s market capitalization jumped from under $700 billion on Tuesday to near the $1 trillion mark.
Bloomberg described the spike in Ellison’s net worth as the largest single-day gain ever recorded on its Billionaires Index.
This milestone underscores the growing influence of tech companies at the forefront of artificial intelligence.
Nvidia recently became the world’s most valuable company with a valuation exceeding $4 trillion, while Microsoft briefly reached the same level earlier this year.
Elon Musk, who first claimed the top spot in 2021, has previously been overtaken by Bernard Arnault of LVMH and Jeff Bezos of Amazon. Musk’s fortune remains largely tied to Tesla and SpaceX.
Now 81, Ellison co-founded Oracle in 1977 and has expanded his empire to include ownership of 98% of Lana’i Island in Hawaii and the Indian Wells tennis tournament in California.
