Larry Ellison has overtaken Elon Musk as the world’s richest man, thanks to a massive surge in Oracle shares that sent his wealth soaring in a single day.
According to Bloomberg, Ellison’s net worth jumped by $101 billion in just 40 minutes on the morning of September 10, pushing his total fortune to $393 billion. The biggest one-day increase ever recorded.
That was enough to move the Oracle chairperson and chief technology officer past Musk, who now sits at around $385 billion.
Musk, who owns Tesla, SpaceX, and the social media app X, still stands ahead of other billionaire tech giants such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.
Elon Musk loses spot as world’s richest person
The sudden spike comes as Oracle’s stock continues to climb, driven by the company’s strong performance in cloud services and demand in the AI space. Ellison is also the company’s largest shareholder.
Ellison, who co-founded Oracle in 1977, has long ranked among the richest individuals in the world. His latest windfall now places him at the very top of Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, ending Elon Musk’s reign as the planet’s wealthiest person, for now anyway.
Oracle’s rise has been fueled by its position as a major supplier of cloud infrastructure capable of handling the massive computing needs of AI firms. In July, the company revealed a deal to supply 4.5 gigawatts of power to OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, to support its expanding AI operations.
The shake-up highlights how quickly fortunes can shift in the tech sector, where stock market rallies and investor confidence in AI are reshaping the global rich list at record speed.
We’ll have to see how long Ellison can hold this title or if Musk will bounce back quickly and recapture the throne.
This isn’t the first time Musk has lost the title of world’s richest man either. He first earned the title in 2021, before losing it to LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault later that year, and then to Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos in 2024, before retaking the crown.
