In a whirlwind day on Wall Street, the title of the world’s richest person was tossed back and forth between two titans of technology: Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle Corporation, and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. The drama unfolded on September 10, 2025, when Oracle’s shares experienced a meteoric rise, briefly propelling Ellison past Musk in the global wealth rankings before a late-day reversal put Musk back on top—if only by a hair.
The action began early Wednesday morning as Oracle’s stock surged more than 40% in a matter of minutes after the company announced quarterly results that shattered analysts’ expectations. According to Bloomberg and the Associated Press, Ellison’s net worth skyrocketed by more than $100 billion in a single morning, reaching an estimated $393 billion, and at one point as high as $405 billion. This dramatic leap allowed Ellison, 81, to overtake Musk—who had been the world’s richest person for four years running—if only temporarily.
Oracle’s remarkable rally was triggered by a blockbuster earnings report and the announcement of over $300 billion in new cloud computing deals. These included multi-year contracts with OpenAI, Meta, Nvidia, and even Musk’s own xAI. The company projected its cloud infrastructure revenue would jump 77% to $18 billion in the current fiscal year and soar to $144 billion within four years—a forecast that stunned investors and sent Oracle’s market capitalization past $959 billion at its peak, as reported by Quartz and Business Insider.
Ellison, who owns about 41% of Oracle—roughly 1.16 billion shares—saw his personal fortune swell as Oracle shares reached an intraday high of $346 before closing at $328, a 36% gain for the day. As Bloomberg noted, Ellison’s stake was valued at nearly $400 billion at the height of trading. The surge marked the largest single-day wealth gain ever recorded by a member of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
But the stock market, ever fickle, had its own ideas. As Oracle’s shares receded from their peak, Musk’s fortunes rebounded. By the end of the trading day, Tesla’s stock had closed 0.2% higher at $347.79, nudging Musk’s net worth up to $384.2 billion—just edging out Ellison’s $383.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The difference between the two was a mere billion dollars, an almost trivial sum at this level, but enough to return Musk to the top of the world’s wealth leaderboard.
The dueling fortunes of Ellison and Musk are a study in contrasts. Ellison, born in 1944 in New York City and raised in Chicago, co-founded Oracle in 1977 with Bob Miner and Ed Oates. Oracle quickly became a pioneer of commercial relational database systems, going public in 1986 and expanding aggressively through major acquisitions like PeopleSoft, Siebel, BEA Systems, and Sun Microsystems. Today, Oracle is a dominant force in enterprise software and cloud computing, offering essential technology solutions across a wide range of industries.
In 2025, Oracle’s growth has been turbocharged by its strategic investments in artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure. The partnership with OpenAI, reportedly worth up to $300 billion, signals a major shift toward AI-driven cloud services. On an earnings call, Ellison declared, “AI changes everything,” outlining how Oracle’s computing centers would not only help build the next generation of chatbots but also power robots in factories, design drugs in laboratories, and automate complex legal and sales work. As Ellison put it, “Oracle will benefit” from the coming wave of AI automation.
Meanwhile, Musk’s path to the top has been rockier of late. Though he first claimed the world’s richest title in 2021 and has held it for much of the time since, his primary asset—Tesla—has faced mounting pressure. Tesla’s stock has slid 14% since January 2025 and is down roughly 25% since December 2024. The electric carmaker has struggled with declining demand, particularly in Europe, where sales plunged 40% earlier in the summer. Some analysts and media outlets, including AP and Quartz, have pointed to consumer backlash against Musk’s political ties to former President Donald Trump as a contributing factor. In the U.S., Tesla has also lost market share, with buyers reportedly put off by Musk’s outspoken political stances.
Musk, however, has worked to shift investor focus toward Tesla’s efforts in robotics and artificial intelligence, touting advances in self-driving technology and the company’s robotaxi ambitions. Tesla even approved a new compensation plan for Musk that could eventually be worth nearly $1 trillion if the company hits its performance targets. Beyond Tesla, Musk controls several private ventures, including rocket maker SpaceX, his AI company xAI, and the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
Despite the day’s back-and-forth, Ellison and Musk remain far ahead of their nearest rivals in the billionaire rankings. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos trailed with net worths of $264 billion and $252 billion, respectively, at Wednesday’s close. Ellison also cemented his position as the biggest wealth gainer of 2025, with a $191 billion increase as of September 10, while Musk led the list of greatest wealth losers with a $48 billion decline this year, according to Business Insider.
The story of Ellison’s rise is as colorful as his business career. He owns nearly the entire Hawaiian island of Lana’i and has played a major role in transforming the Indian Wells tennis tournament in California into a world-class event. Like Musk, Ellison has ties to Donald Trump and has appeared with the former president at investment events this year. At one point, Ellison was even floated as a potential buyer for TikTok, though that deal never materialized.
Oracle’s stunning ascent is emblematic of broader shifts in the technology sector. The company’s focus on enterprise AI and cloud solutions has allowed it to ride the same market rally that vaulted Nvidia to a $4 trillion valuation. By securing massive cloud contracts and projecting exponential revenue growth, Oracle has positioned itself as a key player in the ongoing AI revolution—competing head-to-head with giants like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
For now, the title of the world’s richest person remains up for grabs, with Ellison and Musk trading places as the markets ebb and flow. As Thursday’s premarket trading showed, both Oracle and Tesla shares were on the rise again, setting the stage for more drama—and perhaps another reshuffling of the leaderboard—before the week is out.
In a world where fortunes can shift by billions in mere minutes, the only certainty is that the race for the top is far from over.
