Larry Ellison Just Dethroned Elon Musk--And It Took Only One Trading Day

Larry Ellison just did what few expectedhe passed Elon Musk to become the world's richest person, thanks to a monster move in Oracle ORCL stock. Following a better-than-expected quarterly print and a bold outlook for its cloud infrastructure business, Oracle shares spiked 41% in a single sessionthe biggest one-day gain in the company's history. The stock had already climbed 45% year-to-date before the latest pop. That surge alone added $101 billion to Ellison's fortune, sending his net worth to $393 billion by mid-morning in New York, according to Bloomberg data.

Most of Ellison's wealth remains tied to Oracle, where he still serves as chairman and CTO at age 81. This new milestone ends Musk's nearly year-long run atop the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with the Tesla TSLA CEO now sitting at $385 billion. While Musk's rise has historically hinged on volatile but dramatic runs in Tesla shares, the latest reversal highlights how a disciplined earnings beatand a credible growth storycan reshape the global leaderboard in one trading day.

Tesla, meanwhile, is down 13% this year. The board has floated a performance-based pay package that could still crown Musk the world's first trillionaireif Tesla hits a series of stretch targets. But in this moment, the crown belongs to Ellison, backed by a company that just delivered a fundamental beat, not just a narrative. The market may have just re-priced the software veteran not as a legacy name, but as a formidable player in the cloud arms race.