Did Elon Musk regain the world’s richest title after Larry Ellison’s record surge?

For a few hours on Wednesday, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison briefly overtook Elon Musk as the world’s richest man. Fuelled by a dramatic surge in Oracle’s stock value, Ellison climbed ahead, only for Musk to reclaim the position by the close of trading.

How did Larry Ellison pull ahead?

According to Bloomberg, Ellison’s fortune jumped by $89 billion, reaching $383.2 billion after Oracle released its latest earnings report on Tuesday evening. At one point, his wealth spiked by as much as $101 billion in a single day, the largest one-day gain ever recorded on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Oracle’s record-breaking rally

Oracle’s shares climbed as much as 43 percent before closing 36 percent higher on Wednesday, marking the company’s biggest single-day rise since 1992. The rally was powered by strong earnings and optimism over the company’s growing role in artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The surge lifted Oracle’s market value by about $244 billion, bringing its total worth close to $922 billion. It also moved up the S&P 500 rankings, jumping from the 13th-most valuable firm to the 10th, overtaking giants such as Eli Lilly, Walmart, and JPMorgan Chase.

Musk bounces back on the rich list

Ellison, Oracle’s largest individual shareholder, temporarily moved past Musk thanks to the rally. But by the end of trading, Musk had returned to the number one spot with an estimated net worth of $384.2 billion, placing him $1 billion ahead of Ellison.

Musk has held onto the title of the world’s richest man since first overtaking rivals in 2021, though he has occasionally been pushed aside. He lost the crown to LVMH’s Bernard Arnault in 2021 and to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2024. He reclaimed the top position last year and maintained it for more than 300 days before Ellison’s brief surge this week.