In a major reshuffle of global wealth rankings, Oracle’s Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison has now become the world’s richest person, overtaking Tesla CEO Elon Musk. This change in position comes after Oracle shares witnessed an extraordinary rally on the New York Stock Exchange, climbing 41 percent on Wednesday, September 10 — the highest single-day rise for the company since 1992.
The sharp increase in Oracle’s stock price has pushed Ellison’s net worth up by USD 101 billion, taking his total fortune to USD 395.7 billion, according to Forbes’ real-time billionaire tracker. With this, Ellison has moved ahead of Musk, whose wealth declined due to a 14 percent drop in Tesla shares in 2025.
Oracle’s market valuation has now reached USD 947 billion. The rally was driven by the company’s strong outlook for its cloud business, which is expected to benefit from rising global demand for artificial intelligence computing. The company has forecast total revenue growth of 12–14 percent and cloud revenue growth of 32–36 percent for the second quarter.
Ellison, who is 80 years old, continues to play an active role in Oracle as Chairman and CTO. He founded the software firm in 1977 and led it as CEO until 2014. Much of his wealth is connected to Oracle, whose shares had already gained 45 percent earlier this year before this latest surge.
For nearly 300 days, Musk had held the title of the world’s richest person. He first reached that position in 2021 and has regained it multiple times, briefly losing it to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and LVMH chief Bernard Arnault in the past.
Oracle’s recent momentum also aligns with its involvement in the US government’s AI strategy under President Donald Trump’s Project Stargate, where it is working alongside firms like OpenAI and SoftBank.
Ellison has openly discussed Oracle’s AI direction, including his vision of a future where technology is used for continuous monitoring to help improve public behaviour.
