US tech billionaire Larry Ellison has surpassed Elon Musk to become the world’s richest person, following a historic surge in Oracle’s share price on Wednesday, September 10, 2025.
Oracle’s stock jumped by more than 40% in early trading to $340 per share, pushing the company’s market value to $958 billion (£707bn).
Ellison, who co-founded Oracle and retains a 41% stake, saw his wealth rise to $393 billion edging past Musk’s $384 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
The jump represents Oracle’s largest single-day increase in history and the biggest one-day wealth gain ever recorded on the Bloomberg index.
Beyond Oracle, Ellison’s fortune is spread across a diverse portfolio that includes a stake in Tesla, ownership of the Indian Wells Open tennis tournament, a sailing team, and his private Hawaiian island of Lanai.
Larry Ellison, long considered a mentor to Musk, previously sat on Tesla’s board (2018–2022) and invested $1 billion in Musk’s purchase of Twitter, now X. According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk, Ellison told him he would commit $1 billion or “whatever you recommend.”
Both men share political ties to former US President Donald Trump, with Ellison supporting Trump’s $500 billion Stargate AI project.
Musk, once a close Trump ally, is backing his 2024 election campaign despite a fallout earlier this year.
Oracle’s recent boom is largely tied to soaring demand from artificial intelligence companies for cloud computing services.
OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, is among the firms relying on Oracle’s expanding datacenter infrastructure.
Musk, who first topped Bloomberg’s billionaire list in 2021, reclaimed the title last year but has now been overtaken by 81-year-old Ellison just over 300 days later.
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