Move over, Elon Musk: There’s a new world’s richest person in town.
Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison just became the wealthiest person on the planet for the first time, snatching the crown from Musk after the Tesla CEO sat atop the list for almost a year. Ellison can thank Oracle Corp.’s recent success for the bump; the business saw its latest quarterly sales surpass estimates, leading the 81-year-old billionaire’s fortune to skyrocket by $101 billion, Bloomberg reported.
That addition to Ellison’s net worth—which also includes a rather expansive property portfolio—means that his total fortune is perched at a $393 billion. Musk, meanwhile, has $385 billion to his name, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ellison’s massive wealth bump was the largest single-day gain ever recorded by the publication’s list. As for Musk, he had his seat at the top for just about 300 days.
While Musk still maintains a high perch, he could be facing a turning point for his companies—Tesla’s sales fell for the first time ever in 2024 and that there’s a lack of demand for his Cybertrucks. (The company planned to build 250,000 of the EV pickups a year, but they’re selling at a rate of about a tenth of that.) But plenty of people have fallen off the top of the mountain over the years as markets rise and fall. Jeff Bezos and LVMH head Bernard Arnault have both claimed the title of the world’s richest person at different moments in time; they now sit at No. 4, with $258 billion, and No. 8, with $163 billion, respectively, on the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. Names such as Mark Zuckerberg ($269 billion), Google cofounder Larry Page ($210 billion), and Warren Buffet ($148 billion) are also part of the ranking’s top 10.
Musk could potentially claim the crown once more, though. A new pay package from Tesla’s board would give him $900 million if he meets a series of ambitious goals, according to The New York Times. That figure, if it actually gets doled out in its entirety, would make the CEO the world’s first trillionaire—so Ellison may not be holding on to that No. 1 slot for long.
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