Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle, has officially dethroned Tesla CEO Elon Musk as the world’s richest individual.
The dramatic shift came after Oracle’s stock soared more than 40% this week on the back of ambitious artificial intelligence projections, propelling Ellison’s net worth to a staggering $393 billion — a single-day increase of $101 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Musk now trails with an estimated $385 billion.
But who exactly is Ellison, and what explains this sudden leap in fortune?
From Humble Beginnings to Tech Titan
Born in 1944 to an unwed mother and adopted by relatives, Ellison’s path to wealth was far from conventional.
He studied at the University of Illinois and later the University of Chicago, where he first explored computer design, but never graduated. Instead, he moved to California, determined to become a programmer.
That gamble paid off. In 1977, Ellison co-founded Oracle in Santa Clara, a company that would go on to dominate the database software industry and later expand into cloud computing.
Today, Oracle stands as the world’s fourth-largest software firm — behind Microsoft, Apple, and Alphabet — with a market value nearing $700 billion.
Ellison, now 81, has also built a reputation as one of Silicon Valley’s most colorful figures. He has poured millions into passions ranging from aviation and yachting to real estate, famously spending $200 million on a Japanese-inspired villa and even buying the Hawaiian island of Lanai.
His lifestyle has often drawn as much attention as his business empire.
In recent years, he has also stepped onto the political stage. Ellison has aligned himself with former President Donald Trump, attending White House events and backing major deals like his son David’s $8 billion Paramount takeover.
Reports suggest Trump has even encouraged Ellison to consider purchasing TikTok.
Oracle’s AI Gamble Pays Off
Ellison’s latest windfall is tied directly to Oracle’s AI-driven outlook. While the company’s most recent quarterly earnings came in slightly below expectations at $14.9 billion, executives unveiled bold forecasts that wowed Wall Street.
Oracle now expects its AI-powered cloud revenue to skyrocket from under $20 billion this fiscal year to an eye-popping $144 billion by 2030.
CEO Safra Catz highlighted partnerships with major players like OpenAI, xAI, and Meta as proof of momentum, calling demand for Oracle’s infrastructure “astonishing.”
To meet that demand, Oracle has invested billions into data centers, securing massive quantities of Nvidia’s sought-after AI chips and leasing out computing power to rivals Amazon and Alphabet.
Yet this rapid expansion has also come with internal cost-cutting: reports suggest the company has trimmed staff and discussed freezing raises and bonuses.
Still, analysts hailed the earnings call as evidence of a “seismic shift in computing.” And with Oracle continuing to line up multibillion-dollar deals, investor confidence has followed — fueling Ellison’s historic wealth jump.
Elon Musk isn’t out of the picture just yet. The Tesla and SpaceX chief, who held the top billionaire spot for nearly a year, saw his fortune shrink in early 2025 amid political controversies and slower performance at Tesla. His net worth peaked at $486 billion last December but has since fallen sharply.
Still, Musk could stage a comeback. Tesla recently announced that he may receive a record-breaking pay package exceeding $1 trillion if the company hits ambitious milestones, including scaling its robotaxi business and boosting its market valuation to at least $8.5 trillion.
For now, though, the crown belongs to Larry Ellison — a reminder of how quickly fortunes can shift in the high-stakes world of tech, where artificial intelligence is rewriting the playbook for business, innovation, and wealth creation.
