On Wednesday (Sept. 10), Tesla founder Elon Musk lost his seat as the world’s richest person to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. His net worth grew by an additional $101 billion to the total of $393 billion after the release of the tech company’s latest earnings report. Musk’s net worth is currently $385 billion, having grown from $175 billion as stated in a profile from the New York Times in April.
Ellison, 81, is still active at Oracle as its chairman and chief technology officer. He co-founded the database software manufacturer in 1977, and has seen its stock rise thanks to cloud infrastructure technology. The earnings report estimated that the division would take in $144 billion, a robust increase from its $18 billion in earnings last year.
The boom is also attributed to Oracle’s creation of Oracle Health, created after the company acquired Cerner Corporation for $28.3 billion in 2022, as well as partnering with OpenAI to advance its interest in ChatGPT. OpenAI issued a statement that it would also develop 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity with Oracle during this past quarter, according to CEO Safra Catz.
Oracle’s standard software sales are also strikingly dominant – its market capitalization in comparison to industry leaders ServiceNow and Workday is an estimated $920 billion as opposed to the two companies’ value of $256.6 billion combined. There are only nine companies worth more on the S&P 500 Index, according to CNBC.
Ellison was also a part of the $8 billion merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media in August along with his son, David. The billionaire is also a close adviser and supporter of President Donald Trump going back to the 1990s, and there are rumblings in the tech world that the relationship might lead to Ellison and Oracle acquiring the popular social media platform TikTok from its Chinese-based creator ByteDance. Musk is expected to take the position back, however, with it being contingent on the board at Tesla approving a pay package that could make him the world’s first trillionaire. Ellison coincidentally served on the board at Tesla for four years.
