MW Elon Musk still leads the billionaires, but Larry Ellison is coming up fast
By Jules Rimmer
Oracle Corp.'s rising stock price has powered Larry Ellison into the second spot in the Billionaires Index.
Elon Musk has been the world's richest man for about 300 days. Suddenly, though, he's no longer miles ahead of the rest of the pack. The meteoric rise in Oracle Corp.'s $(ORCL)$ stock price this year has propelled its co-founder, Larry Ellison, into second place.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index provides a daily snapshot of the world's wealthiest men - and they are all men until Alice Walton at the No.14 spot. The top spot has rotated between Musk, Amazon.com Inc.'s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (FR:MC) in France over the last five years. Unsurprisingly, given the revolutionary boom in technology and artificial intelligence, eight of the list's top 10 occupants are tech magnates.
Ellison's surge into second place has been fueled by the 45% rally in Oracle's stock this year, a move that was turbocharged Tuesday by the cloud-computing giant's announcement it was boosting its outlook for sales and had added several large new clients. The biggest one-day jump in Oracle's stock since 1999 added roughly $70 billion to Ellison's net worth. Bloomberg calculated his wealth at $364 billion, compared with Musk's $384 billion.
There is no doubt as to who has the momentum. The share price of Tesla Inc. $(TSLA)$, the largest component of Musk's fortune, has slumped 14% so far in 2025, undermined by Musk's controversial public profile, which has contributed to underwhelming sales of its electric vehicles.
Meanwhile, Ellison is the rich list's "best performer" of the year, having seen his wealth rise by more than $100 billion since January. Ellison has maintained a more low-key presence in the public eye, which has kept investors focused exclusively on Oracle's operational success.
The competition between the two men for the mantle of the world's richest is likely to be friendly, however. Ellison and Musk have shared commercial interests in several projects; Ellison served on Tesla's board and has helped finance Musk's acquisition of Twitter; and has partnered commercially with both SpaceX.
-Jules Rimmer
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September 10, 2025 08:46 ET (12:46 GMT)
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