US software giant Oracle's Co-founder and CTO, Larry Ellison, has become the world's richest person, overtaking Tesla CEO Elon Musk, following a significant increase in his wealth due to the price surge of his company's shares.

Forbes’ real-time billionaire rankings show Ellison’s fortune increased by $101 billion, raising his total net worth to $395.7 billion after Oracle shares experienced a historic rally, surging 41 per cent on Wednesday on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) — marking the steepest increase since 1992. Musk's fortune has slipped after Tesla shares fell 14 per cent in 2025.

Oracle's stock rose after it issued an aggressive outlook for its cloud business, in the race to meet growing demand for artificial intelligence computing, taking the company's market valuation to $947 billion.

For 300 days, Musk was at the top of the global wealth rankings. Musk, who first became the world’s richest person in 2021, regained the title last year after briefly losing it to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and LVMH’s Bernard Arnault.

At 80, Ellison still serves as Oracle’s Chairman and Chief Technology Officer. He founded the company in 1977 and served as its CEO until 2014. His wealth is closely tied to the software maker, which had already risen 45 per cent this year before the latest rally.

Oracle forecasts total revenue growth of 12–14 per cent and cloud revenue growth of 32–36 per cent for the second quarter. Oracle has recently played a key role in the United States government’s push for AI development under President Donald Trump’s Project Stargate, alongside OpenAI and SoftBank.

Ellison has been vocal about Oracle’s AI vision, even suggesting that AI will bring a new era of monitoring, where technology will help improve public behaviour through constant recording and reporting.