Ellison Tops Musk as World's Richest Man

Larry Ellison soared past Elon Musk to become the world’s richest person for the first time as shares in Oracle surged 40% on Wednesday.

A $101 billion single-day gain pushed Ellison’s fortune to $393 billion, ahead of Musk’s $385 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Ellison, 81, who co-founded Oracle and now serves as chairman, owns about 1.16 billion shares of Oracle — earning him more than any human has ever made in a single day.

The stock is on track for its best day since 1999 on jaw-dropping projections that the software giant will reap half a trillion dollars in the future from its AI business.

In the first quarter, Oracle signed four multibillion-dollar contracts with three separate customers, CEO Safra Catz said in an earnings release on Tuesday.

“We have signed significant cloud contracts with the who’s who of AI, including OpenAI, xAI, Meta and many others,” Catz said during a call with investors after the earnings report.

Those deals pushed Oracle’s Remaining Performance Obligations – or future revenue it will deliver based on contracts – up 359% to $455 billion.

The vast majority of this new revenue will come from OpenAI, which agreed to purchase $300 billion in computing power over roughly five years in a massive cloud contract, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Oracle expects to sign several more multibillion-dollar contracts, and for its RPO to exceed half a trillion dollars, Catz said.

The software company has made its fortune by stockpiling a massive supply of Nvidia AI chips and renting out its computing power through its cloud business to tech giants like Amazon and Google.

It expects its cloud revenue to jump to $144 billion by its 2030 fiscal year – a massive jump from its projection of less than $20 billion in its current fiscal year.

“We expect Oracle Cloud Infrastructure revenue to grow 77% to $18 billion this fiscal year – and then increase to $32 billion, $73 billion, $114 billion, and $144 billion over the subsequent four years,” Catz said Tuesday.

Like many others in the industry, Oracle has funneled billions of dollars into its AI investments. To save on costs, the company has laid off workers and reportedly discussed eliminating raises and bonuses for employees this year.

Oracle saw its stock roar full-steam ahead despite reporting earnings that slightly missed estimates on Tuesday.

It reported revenue of $14.9 billion in the first quarter, slightly below projections of $15 billion, and adjusted earnings per share of $1.47, which missed estimates of $1.48.

Capital expenditures will jump to roughly $35 billion in 2026, up from previous estimates of around $25 billion for the year, the company added.

In June, Oracle said it had clinched a new deal set to bring in over $30 billion in annual revenue starting in its 2028 fiscal year. Several media outlets reported the customer was OpenAI.

Ellison’s software giant is also involved in Stargate, a massive $500 billion AI infrastructure deal involving OpenAI and SoftBank that President Trump unveiled at the White House in January.

Stargate, which was created to ramp up AI data center construction in the US, has sharply scaled back its short-term plans as its partners have struggled to complete deals, the Wall Street Journal reported in July.