New York (AFP) – Billionaire Elon Musk is at risk of losing his title of the world’s wealthiest person to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, whose software giant stands poised for massive AI riches. Ellison, 81, amassed more than $100 billion in additional wealth Wednesday as Oracle shares skyrocketed after the nearly 50-year-old company forecast massive revenue growth amid the artificial intelligence investment boom.
That rise lifted Ellison’s overall wealth to about $406 billion compared with Musk’s roughly $440 billion, according to a Forbes real-time billionaire’s index. A Bloomberg wealth index placed Ellison’s bounty slightly ahead of Musk’s, designating the Oracle chief number one at the moment. The difference in the tallies relates to how some of their huge holdings are estimated.
Musk’s most easily estimated holding is Tesla, whose shares have fallen in 2025 amid languishing sales attributed partly to Musk’s embrace of far-right political figures. Tesla earlier this month unveiled a compensation proposal for Musk that could top $1 trillion through 2035 if the company hits ambitious targets. Shareholders will vote on the plan in November.
Ellison, a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, holds more than 1.1 billion shares of Oracle, accounting for more than 40 percent of equity, according to S&P Capital IQ. Oracle CEO Safra Catz called the just-finished quarter “astonishing” as the company signed “four multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different customers.”
Oracle projected that its cloud business revenues would grow 77 percent in the current fiscal year to $18 billion. In subsequent years, revenues are expected to rise to $32 billion, $73 billion, $114 billion, and $144 billion. Near 1630 GMT, Oracle shares were up about 40 percent at $338.00, translating into a market value of around $950 billion.
© 2024 AFP
