Danielle Kaye Business Reporter
Getty ImagesElon Musk briefly lost his title as the world’s richest person to Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle and an ally of US President Donald Trump.
Ellison’s wealth rose to $393 billion (£290 billion) on Wednesday morning, surpassing Musk’s $385 billion (£284 billion), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The jump came after Oracle shares, which account for a significant portion of Ellison’s fortune, rose more than 40%, boosted by the database software company’s surprisingly rosy outlook for its cloud infrastructure business and artificial intelligence (AI) deals.
But the company’s stock price had pared some of those gains by the end of the day, forcing Musk back on top.
Musk held the title of the world’s richest person for almost a year before briefly losing it to Ellison.
He could receive a pay package worth more than $1tn (£740bn) if he achieves an ambitious list of targets over the next decade, the electric car firm’s board has suggested.
But shares of Tesla, Musk’s most valuable business, have fallen this year.
The electric vehicle maker has struggled with investor turmoil over the Trump administration’s rollback of electric vehicle initiatives, in addition to Musk’s political involvement.
Oracle has recently been hit by the growing demand for data center infrastructure.
The company forecast in its quarterly earnings report Tuesday that revenue from its cloud business will increase 77% this year to $18 billion, with further growth expected in the coming years.
Oracle has reported a surge in demand from AI companies for its data centers, which helped drive its inventory up dramatically.
It signed four multibillion-dollar contracts with clients last quarter and expects several deals in the coming months, Chief Executive Officer Safra Catz said Tuesday.
Trump ties and media ambitions
Ellison, 81, helped start Oracle in 1977 and rose to prominence in the 1990s, when he became a public figure known as much for his lavish lifestyle as for the database company behind his fortune.
He was Oracle’s CEO until 2014 and is now the company’s chairman and chief technology officer.
And he has positioned himself as an ally to President Trump.
When Trump returned to the White House in January, Ellison appeared alongside OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Softbank’s Masayoshi Son to announce a project called Stargate to build AI infrastructure in the US.
Oracle has also emerged as a potential buyer of TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese internet company. TikTok is facing a ban in the US unless it moves from its ownership to its intent.
In January, when asked if he was open to Musk buying TikTok, Trump replied, “I’d like Larry to buy it too.”
Ellison’s media ambitions go beyond Tiktok.
He financed most of his son’s $8 billion bid to buy Paramount, which owns CBS and MTV.
This deal between Paramount and the media company Skydance, which is controlled by his son David, closed last month.
