NEW YORK (BN24) — Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison has surpassed Elon Musk to become the world’s richest person, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, after a dramatic surge in Oracle’s stock sent his net worth soaring.
Ellison, 81, is now worth an estimated $393 billion, edging past Musk by several billion dollars. The software magnate’s fortune surged early Wednesday following a blowout earnings report from Oracle, fueled by skyrocketing demand for artificial intelligence-related services. Oracle shares jumped more than 35% in a matter of minutes during morning trading.
The sharp rise in Ellison’s wealth comes as Tesla, one of Musk’s largest assets, continues to underperform. Shares of the electric carmaker have fallen 14% since the start of the year. Musk, who has held the top spot on the Bloomberg wealth list for four consecutive years, now holds an estimated net worth of $385 billion, per Bloomberg’s calculations.
Another closely watched list — Forbes’ real-time billionaires tracker — still places Musk at No. 1, with a reported net worth of $439 billion. The discrepancy stems largely from differing valuations of SpaceX and other private assets, which are more difficult to measure than publicly traded holdings like Oracle or Tesla stock.
Ellison, a college dropout who founded Oracle in 1977, has benefited immensely from the company’s pivot to cloud computing and enterprise AI tools. Wednesday’s earnings report included several multibillion-dollar deals with major tech clients, signaling Oracle’s growing foothold in the AI infrastructure space.
The magnitude of Ellison’s fortune underscores his unprecedented financial reach. According to economic estimates, his current net worth could support 5 million American families for a year based on median household income — nearly equivalent to the population of Florida. Alternatively, it could fund the entire GDP of South Africa for 12 months.
The changing of the guard atop the global wealth rankings reflects shifting investor sentiment and the growing influence of AI in global markets — a field where Ellison’s Oracle is now a clear frontrunner.
