Briefly the richest on Earth: Larry Ellison eclipses Elon Musk as Oracle surges—then the crown snaps back.
One morning, Larry Ellison briefly became the world's richest person, a moment born from Oracle's sharp stock jump. Early trading sent Oracle shares up more than 40%, lifting Ellison’s fortune to about $393 billion—just ahead of Elon Musk's roughly $384 billion. By the close, the crown had slipped back to Musk, with Ellison’s stake valued at about $378 billion.
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The spike that crowned him, then faded.
Oracle reported better-than-expected results, triggering a dramatic intraday rally. The shares rose more than 40% in early trading, briefly pushing Oracle's market cap toward $960 billion and lifting Ellison’s stake to about $393 billion. Bloomberg's billionaires index showed Musk at about $384 billion at that moment. The day ended with Oracle finishing around $328 per share, a 36% rise, valuing Ellison's stake at roughly $378 billion and returning the lead to Musk.
Ellison’s wealth is Oracle-heavy—and broader.
Most of Ellison’s fortune comes from Oracle, where he owns about 41% of the company. The stock's AI-driven demand for cloud services has boosted its value, helping explain the intraday surge. Ellison also has other assets: a stake in electric-car maker Tesla, a sailing team, the Indian Wells Open tennis tournament, and a Hawaiian island.
A long-running bond with Musk—and a wider political footprint.
Ellison sat on Tesla’s board between 2018 and 2022 and invested $1 billion in Musk's purchase of Twitter—now rebranded as X. According to Walter Isaacson's biography of Musk, when the Tesla chief asked for the investment, Ellison replied that he would put in a billion dollars or “whatever you recommend.” Musk is a frequent visitor to Ellison's Hawaiian island, Lanai. Ellison is a supporter of Donald Trump and has regularly appeared with him at the White House, including the Stargate project to invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the US. Musk, a prominent backer of Trump's 2024 campaign, also had a strong relationship with Trump before it imploded earlier this year.
What this moment reveals about wealth, power, and the AI economy.
Oracle accounts for the majority of Ellison's wealth, and its value has been boosted by demand from AI companies for cloud services that power large datacenters. The intraday swing shows how fortunes in tech can rise and fall with stock moves and investor sentiment around AI infrastructure. Ellison's fortune remains closely tied to Oracle's performance, even as Musk's broader empire keeps him in the lead over the longer term.
