Elon Musk is still top dog, but Oracle's Larry Ellison is now just $1 billion behind

By Jules Rimmer and Tomi Kilgore

The Oracle co-founder's net worth grows by nearly $90 billion in a day, but that wasn't quite enough to make him the world's richest person

Oracle Corp.'s rising stock price has powered Larry Ellison close to the top of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

It was close, but Elon Musk has held on to his title of world's richest person.

The Tesla Inc. (TSLA) Chief Executive has held that title for about 300 days. But given the meteoric rise in Oracle Corp.'s (ORCL) stock price on Wednesday and so far this year, Larry Ellison, the company's co-founder, is nipping at his heels.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index provides a daily snapshot of the world's wealthiest men - and they are all men until Alice Walton (of the Walmart Inc. (WMT) fortune) at the No. 14 spot.

The top spot has rotated between Musk, Amazon.com Inc.'s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (FR:MC) (LVMUY) over the past five years. Unsurprisingly, given the revolutionary boom in technology and artificial intelligence, eight of the list's top 10 occupants are tech magnates.

As of the stock market's close on Tuesday, Ellison was a distant second with a net worth of $295 billion, behind Musk at $384 billion. Then after the close, Oracle boosted its outlook for sales and said it added several large new clients. The stock took flight and Ellison made his move, but came up just short, at least for now.

Oracle shares rocketed 36% higher on Wednesday to $328.33, to book their biggest one-day percentage gain since a record 43.9% rally on Dec. 23, 1992.

Read: Oracle's stock is doing something never seen before on Wall Street: Inside the historic move.

Based on the latest filings showing that Ellison owned 1.16 billion Oracle shares, the stock's $86.82 price gain on Wednesday would boost the value of his Oracle stake by $100.56 billion. But keep in mind there's more to Bloomberg's calculations of Ellison's wealth on any given day than just his share holdings.

So the Bloomberg Billionaires Index said Ellison's wealth increased by $88.5 billion on the day, to put him at $383 billion as of the market close on Sept. 10.

So Musk, who saw his wealth increase by about $573 million on the day, was still No. 1 at $384 billion, the BBI said.

Even including the historic rally in Oracle's stock Wednesday, Ellison didn't get this close to being the world's richest person overnight.

Tesla's share price has slumped 13.9% in 2025, undermined by Musk's controversial public profile, which has contributed to underwhelming sales of the company's electric vehicles. In comparison, Oracle shares have soared 110.6% this year.

Read: Tesla is losing U.S. market share. And that's in the middle of an EV boom.

Meanwhile, Ellison was the rich list's "best performer" of the year, having seen his wealth rise by $191 billion this year. And Ellison has maintained a more low-key presence in the public eye, which has kept investors focused exclusively on Oracle's operational success.

While who is No. 1 may flip-flop in the coming days, the competition between the two men for the mantle of the world's richest is likely to be friendly. Ellison and Musk have shared commercial interests in several projects; Ellison served on Tesla's board and helped finance Musk's acquisition of the social-media platform Twitter, now X.

-Jules Rimmer -Tomi Kilgore

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09-10-25 2022ET