Do you know Larry Ellison? He may soon replace Musk as world's richest man

The surge in Ellison's net worth came shortly after the company announced its quarterly results, pushing it to an estimated $364 billion

Oracle Co-Founder Larry Ellison has threatened Tesla Chief Elon Musk’s position as the world’s richest person, a title Musk has held tightly for a little over 300 days. Ellison’s fortune skyrocketed by $70 billion in a single day, marking the largest one-day wealth gain recorded so far.

 

The surge that came shortly after the company announced its quarterly results has pushed Ellison’s net worth to an estimated $364 billion. This brings him within striking distance of Musk, whose fortune currently stands at $384 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.  ALSO READ: Larry Ellison overtakes Elon Musk to become world's richest person

 

Musk first clinched the top spot as the world’s wealthiest individual in 2021, before briefly ceding it to Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos and LVMH Chairman Bernard Arnault. He regained the crown last year, but Ellison’s dramatic rise now puts him in direct contention. If Ellison manages to sustain his gains, Musk’s reign at the top could be under serious threat.

Who is Larry Ellison?

Ellison, 81, is the chairman, chief technology officer and co-founder of software giant Oracle, where he holds 40 per cent shares. After serving as the CEO of Oracle for 37 years, he gave up the position in 2014. Ellison's fortunes continued to grow along with Oracle's rise, which came through steady acquisitions of software companies.

 

Interestingly, before vying with Musk in the wealth rankings, Ellison was actually in his corner. He was a director on Tesla’s board between 2018 and 2022 and walked away with 45 million split-adjusted shares to his name. He also owns nearly 50 per cent of media giant Paramount Skydance, Forbes stated.

 

According to Forbes, his net worth surged from $43.6 billion in 2016 to $192 billion earlier this year. In July, he eclipsed Meta Chief Mark Zuckerberg's position as the world’s second-wealthiest person. However, the latest surge has placed him as a potential threat to Musk's coveted title.

Reason behind the rush

Over the past few years, Oracle has aggressively repositioned itself as a major player in cloud infrastructure, securing clients such as Nvidia Corp and ByteDance’s TikTok. 

 

The firm has benefited from the enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). According to Bloomberg, as of September, Oracle’s share price had tripled since the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022.

 

On September 9, the company's shares hit an all-time high after it announced its quarterly results, providing an aggressive outlook for its cloud business. "MultiCloud database revenue from Amazon, Google and Microsoft grew at the incredible rate of 1,529 per cent in Q1," Ellison said in a company statement.

 

He further said that Oracle expects its MultiCloud revenue to grow strongly every quarter for years to come, as it adds 37 new data centres for its three hyperscaler partners. "At next month’s Oracle AI World, the company will also launch the Oracle AI Database—a new cloud service that allows customers to run leading large language models like Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and xAI’s Grok directly on their Oracle databases," he said.

 

The upbeat outlook stunned Wall Street and investors alike, fuelling a record-breaking surge in Oracle’s stock. The rally translated into a $70 billion jump in Ellison’s net worth in just one day, cementing his position as Musk’s closest challenger in the race for the title of the world’s richest person.