With just over 3,000 billionaires in the world, any shake-up at the top is a big deal—especially when someone leapfrogs Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.
On Tuesday, July 1, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison claimed the No. 2 spot on Forbes’ real-time billionaire list, trailing only Elon Musk. His net worth surged to somewhere between $262 billion and $282 billion, fueled by a 32% jump in Oracle’s stock in June after the company delivered a blowout earnings report.
At 80 years old, Larry Ellison is proving age is just a number. The Oracle co-founder, who owns around 40% of the company, is riding high on the surge of AI-driven cloud computing hype. “Oracle’s future is bright in this new era of cloud computing,” Ellison said last week. “It’s just the beginning.”
Oracle’s earnings report, which dropped on June 11, blew past expectations with $57.4 billion in fiscal revenue and $1.70 EPS. That performance sent the company’s stock soaring—and with it, Ellison’s fortune. In just two days, his net worth shot up by more than $40 billion, including a massive $25 billion jump on Thursday followed by another $16 billion on Friday.
While Bloomberg currently places Zuckerberg slightly ahead with about $253 billion to Ellison’s $248 billion, Forbes has crowned Ellison the world’s second-richest person. Either way, he’s now ahead of Jeff Bezos, whose net worth is estimated between $235 and $241 billion.
Analysts believe this could be just the beginning of a bigger wave. TD Cowen’s Derrick Wood called Oracle’s trajectory a “major inflection point” as the demand for AI continues to skyrocket. With momentum like this, Ellison’s climb may not be over.
Still, to dethrone Elon Musk, Ellison would need to close a gap of around $125 billion. But there’s no rivalry here—just mutual respect. “I’m very close friends with Elon Musk, and I’m a big investor in Tesla,” Ellison said during a 2018 analyst call.
