Billionaire Elon Musk is at risk of losing his title as the world鈥檚 wealthiest person to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, whose software giant appears poised for massive AI riches through a major deal with OpenAI.
Ellison, 81, amassed about $95 billion in additional wealth Wednesday as Oracle shares skyrocketed after the nearly 50-year-old company forecast massive revenue growth thanks to large contracts that will dwarf current revenue.
That rise lifted Ellison鈥檚 overall fortune to nearly $390 billion compared with Musk鈥檚 roughly $436 billion, according to Forbes鈥� real-time billionaires index.
A Bloomberg wealth index placed Ellison鈥檚 bounty slightly ahead of Musk鈥檚, designating the Oracle chief number one at the moment. The difference in the tallies relates to how some of their huge holdings are estimated.
Ellison and Musk are close friends, with the Oracle boss often coming to Musk鈥檚 aid during challenging periods in the Tesla tycoon鈥檚 career.
He invested over $1 billion in Musk鈥檚 buyout of Twitter and served on Tesla鈥檚 board for many years.
Musk鈥檚 most easily estimated holding is Tesla, whose shares have fallen in 2025 amid languishing sales attributed partly to Musk鈥檚 embrace of far-right political causes.
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 per cent of the company鈥檚 equity, according to S&P Capital IQ.
Oracle CEO Safra Catz called the just-finished quarter 鈥榓stonishing鈥� as the company signed 鈥榝our multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different customers.鈥�
Oracle projected that its cloud business revenues would grow 77 per cent 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.
The bulk of Oracle鈥檚 new contracts comes from an agreement for OpenAI to purchase some $300 billion in computing power over roughly five years, according to a Wall Street Journal report Wednesday citing people familiar with the matter.
