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Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison has overtaken Tesla CEO Elon Musk as the world's wealthiest person following a dramatic surge in the software company's stock price that boosted his net worth by more than $100 billion this week.
Ellison's fortune reached nearly $400 billion by Wednesday morning after Oracle shares jumped more than 39% during trading, according to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index. Musk, who previously held the top position, saw his wealth dip to approximately $385 billion.
The stock rally began after Oracle reported strong earnings Tuesday evening, with the company announcing a backlog exceeding $450 billion for cloud services and revealing multibillion-dollar computing contracts with artificial intelligence leaders Nvidia and OpenAI.
"Over the next few months, we expect to sign-up several additional multi-billion-dollar customers," Oracle stated, predicting the backlog will likely "exceed half-a-trillion dollars."
Ellison owns roughly 1.16 billion Oracle shares, representing about 41% of the company's outstanding stock. The 81-year-old entrepreneur co-founded the database software giant more than four decades ago, and the company's market value approached $1 trillion during Wednesday's session.
Oracle's cloud computing business has positioned the company as a key player in the AI boom, with major tech companies seeking powerful infrastructure to support their artificial intelligence operations.
The wealth shuffle at the top of global rankings reflects the volatile nature of tech fortunes tied to stock performance. Musk's net worth had surged from about $262 billion in early November to over $414 billion by January, largely driven by Tesla's post-election rally and his close ties to President Donald Trump's administration.
However, Tesla shares have since declined amid concerns about lagging sales and uncertainty surrounding Musk's political involvement. His recent departure from a Trump administration role contributed to the stock's slide.
Behind the new top two, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin round out the world's wealthiest individuals.
The Ellison family has been expanding beyond software into media and artificial intelligence. David Ellison, Larry's son, recently completed an $8 billion acquisition of Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS and MTV, with $6 billion in funding from the family fortune.
Larry Ellison, a prominent Trump supporter, recently joined the president at the White House alongside SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to announce a $500 billion datacenter project that will utilize Oracle technology.
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