Larry Ellison, the co-founder and longtime chair of Oracle, briefly became the world’s richest person after a dramatic rise in Oracle’s share price following the company’s strong quarterly results and upbeat AI-focused growth outlook. Bloomberg’s billionaire index recorded a one-day jump that pushed Ellison’s net worth to roughly $390–$395 billion, putting him a few billion ahead of Elon Musk.
The wealth surge came after Oracle reported better-than-expected earnings and guidance tied to accelerating demand for its cloud and AI infrastructure services — news that sent the company’s market value sharply higher. Analysts pointed to large new cloud contracts and management’s bullish revenue forecasts as the main drivers of investor enthusiasm.
While Bloomberg’s index showed Ellison at the top after the market move, other rankings can differ because they value private holdings (such as SpaceX and X) using different assumptions. As a result, Forbes and other trackers sometimes show a different ordering of the richest individuals. The change in ranking reflects market swings rather than any change in the underlying businesses overnight.
Market watchers say the episode highlights how big the swings in the ultra-wealthy rankings can be when large holdings are concentrated in a single public company. Oracle’s sudden re-rating on hopes of AI-related growth lifted Ellison’s stake by tens of billions in a single session, underscoring how company results and investor sentiment can rapidly reshape headline net-worth figures.
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