Elon Musk might be building electric cars, rockets, and brain-computer interfaces, but he’s not doing as well as someone running a database company.
Oracle founder Larry Ellison has dethroned Elon Musk to become the world’s richest person. Oracle’s stock rose a stunning 40 percent in trade today after the company’s revenue forecasts for the next five years impressed investors. The increase puts Ellison’s net worth at $393 billion, per Bloomberg Billionaires Index, ahead of Elon Musk, who is worth $385 billion. The rise in Ellison’s wealth is the sharpest-ever one-day rise for a member of the billionaires index.
Larry Ellison, 81, owns 41 percent of Oracle. Oracle is best known for its database software, but the company has been investing AI as well, and forecast $144 billion in revenue by 2030, fueled by the AI-driving cloud computing boom. Oracle is provides cloud applications and cloud infrastructure to businesses worldwide, enabling them to manage data, automate processes, and build new applications. Its offerings include the Oracle Autonomous Database for data management, cloud-based platforms for enterprise workloads and new cloud-native applications, and integrated software for finance, human resources, and supply chain management. Oracle also develops enterprise-grade software like the popular Java programming language and the MySQL open-source database.
Larry Ellison was born in New York in 1944.
Larry Ellison, born in 1944 in New York City. had a challenging childhood after being given up for adoption by his young, single mother and raised in Chicago by his aunt and uncle. Ellison, a self-taught programmer, attended but did not complete college, briefly enrolling at the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago before moving to California to work in technology. He worked as a computer programmer for several years before co-founding Software Development Laboratories in 1977, which would later become Oracle Corporation. His early vision was inspired by an IBM research paper on relational databases, leading to the creation of the first commercially viable relational database management system.
Under Ellison’s leadership, Oracle grew from a startup into one of the world’s foremost technology companies, pioneering products that transformed enterprise data management and cloud computing. Despite facing major business crises—including near bankruptcy in the early 1990s—Ellison’s focus on innovation, strategic acquisitions, and drive helped Oracle dominate the global database market, amassing a personal fortune that ranked him among the world’s richest individuals. After stepping down as CEO in 2014, Ellison remained deeply involved as chief technology officer and board chair, and expanded into new ventures, philanthropy, real estate, and high-profile yachting challenges, further solidifying his reputation as one of technology’s most influential and colorful figures.
Ellison usually keeps out of the limelight, but he’s had an interesting personal life. He’s been married five times, and has two children. Ellison is a licensed pilot who has owned several aircraft, including two military jets. He has purchased a 50% share of the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament, and is known for his love of yachting. And now as the world’s richest man, Ellison, even at the age of 81, has ever more resources to pursue his passions.