Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk may soon be dethroned as the world’s wealthiest person by Larry Ellison, the 81-year-old co-founder of Oracle, whose company is poised to reap enormous profits from the accelerating AI revolution.
On Wednesday, Ellison’s fortune surged by an estimated $100 billion after Oracle shares soared, driven by the company’s bullish forecast of explosive revenue growth fueled by artificial intelligence investments.
That surge pushed Ellison’s net worth to approximately $395 billion, narrowing the gap with Musk’s estimated $440 billion, according to Forbes’ real-time billionaires index.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s wealth rankings briefly placed Ellison ahead of Musk, citing different valuation methods for their vast holdings—particularly in Tesla and Oracle.
Though business rivals, Ellison and Musk share a strong personal bond. Ellison has stood by Musk during critical junctures in his career, including investing over $1 billion in Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and serving on Tesla’s board for several years.
Musk’s wealth, primarily tied to Tesla, has recently taken a hit due to a decline in the company’s stock price. Tesla’s underperformance in 2025 is partly linked to dwindling sales and public backlash over Musk’s vocal support for far-right political figures.
Despite this, Tesla is proposing a record-breaking compensation package for Musk that could exceed $1 trillion by 2035, contingent on the company achieving ambitious growth targets. A shareholder vote is scheduled for November.
Ellison, a known supporter of former President Donald Trump, owns over 1.1 billion Oracle shares, giving him more than 40% ownership of the company, per S&P Capital IQ data.
Oracle CEO Safra Catz described the latest quarter as “astonishing,” noting the company had secured four multi-billion-dollar contracts with three separate clients.
Looking ahead, Oracle forecasts that its cloud business revenue will grow by 77% this fiscal year, reaching $18 billion. Projections for future years show even more aggressive growth: $32 billion, $73 billion, $114 billion, and eventually $144 billion—solidifying its position as a major AI-era player.
