Oracle’s Larry Ellison briefly surpasses Elon Musk as world’s richest man after $130 billion gain

KUALA LUMPUR - Mr Larry Ellison briefly surpassed Mr Elon Musk to become the world’s richest person on Sept 10 after a jump in Oracle shares added a record amount to his fortune.

Mr Ellison’s fortune soared US$101 billion (S$130 billion) as at 10.10am in New York after Oracle reported quarterly results that surpassed expectations on AI cloud gains and said there is more growth to come.

The increase lifted his total fortune to US$393 billion, ahead of Mr Musk who sits at US$385 billion.

By the close of trading on Sept 10, Mr Ellison’s wealth was up US$89 billion, lifting his total net worth to US$383.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

It’s the biggest one-day increase ever recorded, and put him ahead of Mr Musk for much of the day before the Tesla CEO edged back into pole position by just US$1 billion.

Mr Musk, 54, became the world’s richest person for the first time in 2021 before losing the title to Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos and LVMH’s Bernard Arnault. He reclaimed it in 2024 and has held it for just over 300 days.

Mr Ellison, 81, who co-founded Oracle and is now chairman and chief technology officer, has the bulk of his net worth tied up in the database software company.

Oracle’s shares, which had already gained 45 per cent in 2025 through Sept 9’s close, surged 36 per cent on Sept 10 after the company posted a major increase in bookings and gave an aggressive outlook for its cloud infrastructure business.

It is the company’s largest single-day gain since 1992, and also added US$97 million to chief executive Safra Catz’s net worth.

Shares of Tesla, by contrast, are down 14 per cent in 2025. The company’s board has proposed a massive pay package for Mr Musk that, if he succeeds in meeting a series of ambitious targets, could make him the world’s first trillionaire. BLOOMBERG