Elon Musk lost his title as world’s richest person - and then got it back

Elon Musk could lose his "world's richest person" title on September 10. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

NEW YORK — Elon Musk briefly lost his title of “world’s richest person” title to Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison.

Ellison’s wealth jumped by US$89 billion to $383.2 billion on Wednesday after Oracle’s stunningly strong earnings report Tuesday evening, according to Bloomberg.

Oracle (ORCL) reported surging demand for its data center capacity from AI customers, launching the stock into the stratosphere. Shares gained as much as 43% before closing higher by about 36% on Wednesday; it was the stock’s biggest single-day gain since 1992.

Ellison is Oracle’s largest individual shareholder. His gains in net worth made him the world’s richest person for a few hours on Wednesday, briefly surpassing Musk’s net worth.

But as of market close on Wednesday, Musk’s net worth was $384.2 billion, beating out Ellison’s by $1 billion.

Oracle CEO Safra Catz announced Tuesday after the stock market closed that the company 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. In July, Oracle announced a deal to provide ChatGPT’s parent company OpenAI with 4.5 gigawatts of electricity to power its AI software.

“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 Wednesday. Reitzes called Oracle’s $455 billion backlog in demand for its AI services “staggering.”

Ellison briefly captured the title of world’s richest person because of the stock’s extraordinary gains. The stock’s jump is exceedingly rare for a company that has a massive market value.

Oracle shares hit a record high on Wednesday. Oracle’s market value gained roughly $244 billion, lifting it to roughly $922 billion. Oracle on Wednesday jumped from being the 13th-most valuable company in the S&P 500 to the 10th most-valuable, surpassing the market value of Eli Lilly (LLY), Walmart (WMT) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM).

Ellison’s wealth rose as much as $101 billion before settling at a gain of about $89 billion. Bloomberg notes Ellison’s leap in wealth is the “biggest one-day increase ever recorded” recorded by the index.

As Oracle has become a powerhouse in AI technology, it has ridden the recent tech boom that has propelled Nvidia to become the world’s most valuable company, with a valuation north of $4 trillion. Microsoft briefly joined Nvidia above the $4 trillion mark. The eight most-valuable stocks in the S&P 500 are all tech stocks with some stake in building the AI-powerd future.

“Microsoft and Oracle really aren’t software companies anymore - they are AI cloud infrastructure stocks that happen to sell software too,” said Reitzes.

As the AI boom accelerates, Oracle’s stock has risen 97% this year. Analysts at Bank of America and Citi on Wednesday raised their price targets for Oracle stock and upgraded it to “buy” from “neutral.”

Meanwhile, Tesla shares (TSLA) are down roughly 14% this year.

Musk first captured the title 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 $1 trillion once Tesla hits certain milestones.

For Ellison, his road to becoming one of the world’s richest people traces back to 1977, when he dropped out of college and helped establish Oracle.

The 81-year-old multibillionaire owns 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lana’i and is credited for reviving the Indian Wells tennis tournament in California, earning it the “fifth slam” nickname.

Ellison has close ties with President Donald Trump, often appearing with him at the White House for various technology events and rewarding Oracle contracts. He’s also seen has a possible suitor for TikTok, although those plans have not come to fruition.

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN