Elon Musk Loses and Regains the Title of World’s Wealthiest Person: A Prolonged Battle with Larry Ellison
In the summer of 2023, global financial markets once again witnessed an exciting race for the title of the world’s wealthiest individual.
Initially, Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of giants like Tesla and SpaceX, briefly topped the ranking due to a significant surge in his companies’ stock prices amid increasing demand for autonomous vehicles and space technologies.
However, his short-lived triumph was overtaken by an impressive increase in the wealth of Oracle’s co-founder, Larry Ellison, who, fueled by his company’s robust financial results, managed to surpass Musk and become the richest person in the world—in a temporary but notable shift.
Ellison, renowned for his active role in cloud technologies and artificial intelligence, recorded extraordinary gains thanks to new lucrative contracts with major clients.
These deals resulted in record profits for Oracle and substantial stock price growth, driven primarily by investments in AI and partnerships with companies like OpenAI, which secured additional power resources to support cutting-edge projects.
This leap in financial valuation pushed Oracle’s market capitalization to nearly one trillion dollars, marking an all-time high and catapulting the company into the top ranks of global tech giants.
Stocks soared by over 43% in a single day, adding more than $244 billion to Oracle’s value.
This financial surge temporarily gave Ellison the title of the world’s richest person, a position that had been held mostly by Musk for nearly two years.
Nonetheless, by the close of trading on Wednesday, Musk’s assets reached over $384.2 billion, surpassing Ellison by a billion dollars.
These developments represented the most substantial single-day wealth increase in U.S.
stock market history.
The accelerated growth reflected the pivotal role of tech giants within the expanding AI sector, with Oracle and peers like Nvidia and Microsoft rising to record valuations, reinforcing the dominance of the technology industry in shaping future economies.