Elon Musk has lost his title as the world’s richest person to Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle and an ally of US President Donald Trump.
Ellison’s wealth surged to $393bn (£290bn) on Wednesday morning, surpassing Musk’s $385bn (£284bn), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Shares in Oracle soared more than 40% after the database software company gave investors a surprisingly rosy outlook for its cloud infrastructure business and artificial intelligence deals.
Ellison, whose net worth is tied to the company, has steadily built his fortune over the past five decades. Oracle has recently been propelled by growing demand for data centre infrastructure.
The company projected as part of its quarterly earnings report on Tuesday that revenue from its cloud business will jump 77% this year, to $18bn, with further growth expected in the coming years.
Oracle also reported a surge in demand among AI companies for its data centres, which helped push its stock dramatically higher.
It signed four multibillion-dollar contracts with customers in the last quarter and anticipates several more deals in the months ahead, chief executive Safra Catz said on Tuesday.
Oracle’s surge comes as shares in Tesla, Musk’s most valuable business, have fallen this year.
The electric vehicle maker has grappled with investor jitters over the Trump administration’s rollback of electric vehicle initiatives, on top of consumer backlash to Musk’s political involvement.
Musk had held the title of world’s richest person for nearly one year.
