Elon Musk just lost his title as world’s richest person
Elon Musk has lost his title of “world’s richest person” to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
Ellison’s wealth jumped by $US101 billion ($152 billion) to $US393 billion ($594 billion) after Oracle’s stunningly strong earnings report this week, surpassing Musk’s net worth of $US385 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Oracle (ORCL) reported surging demand for its data centre capacity from AI customers, launching the stock into the stratosphere. Shares gained 36 per cent on Wednesday, which was the stock’s biggest single-day gain since 1992.
Elon Musk is no longer the richest person in the world. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) (AP)
Chief executive Safra Catz announced on Tuesday after the stock market closed that Oracle signed four multibillion-dollar contracts with customers during the quarter, and she expects to sign several more in the coming months.
That electric forecast was powered by Oracle’s emergence as a key provider of infrastructure that powers AI companies’ enormous demands for computing power – Oracle’s bread and butter as a cloud services and database software provider.
“We’ll be talking about this one for a long time,” said Ben Reitzes, analyst at Melius Research, about Oracle’s earnings report in a note to investors on Wednesday.
Reitzes called Oracle’s $US455 billion backlog in demand for its AI services “staggering.”
Ellison is Oracle’s largest individual shareholder and captured the title of world’s richest person because of the stock’s extraordinary gains on Wednesday. The stock’s jump is exceedingly rare for a company that has a massive market value.
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison is the world’s richest person. (Bloomberg photo by David Paul Morris) (Bloomberg)
Oracle’s market value gained roughly $US244 billion on Wednesday, lifting it to roughly $US922 billion. Oracle on Wednesday jumped from being the 13th-most valuable company in the US S&P 500 to the 10th most-valuable.
Bloomberg notes Ellison’s leap in wealth is the “biggest one-day increase ever recorded” recorded by the index.
Meanwhile, Tesla shares (TSLA) are down roughly 14 per cent this year.
Musk first captured the title of the world’s richest person in 2021 and has largely held on to it for the past few years, thanks in part to his various investments in Tesla and SpaceX.
Over the years, Musk has briefly lost it twice, first in 2021 to LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault and in 2024 to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Nevertheless, Musk has prevailed despite his various trials and tribulations. He was even give a new pay package that could be worth close to $US1 trillion once Tesla hits certain milestones.
