Business
Oracle’s Larry Ellison surpasses Elon Musk as world’s richest man
Danielle KayeBusiness reporter
Getty ImagesElon Musk has lost his title as the world’s richest person to Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle and an ally of US President Donald Trump.
Ellison’s wealth surged to $393bn (£290bn) on Wednesday morning, surpassing Musk’s $385bn (£284bn), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Shares in Oracle soared more than 40% after the database software company gave investors a surprisingly rosy outlook for its cloud infrastructure business and artificial intelligence (AI) deals.
Ellison, whose net worth is tied to the company, has steadily built his fortune over the past five decades.
Musk had held the title of world’s richest person for nearly one year. He could receive a pay package worth over $1tn (£740bn) if he hits a list of ambitious targets over the next decade, the board of the electric car firm has proposed.
But shares in Musk’s most valuable business, Tesla, have fallen this year.
The electric vehicle maker has grappled with investor jitters over the Trump administration’s rollback of electric vehicle initiatives, on top of consumer backlash to Musk’s political involvement.
Oracle has recently been propelled by growing demand for data centre infrastructure.
The company projected as part of its quarterly earnings report on Tuesday that revenue from its cloud business will jump 77% this year, to $18bn, with further growth expected in the coming years.
Oracle has reported a surge in demand among AI companies for its data centres, which helped push its stock dramatically higher.
It signed four multibillion-dollar contracts with customers in the last quarter and anticipates several more deals in the months ahead, chief executive Safra Catz said on Tuesday.
Trump ties and media ambitions
Ellison, 81, helped start Oracle in 1977 and rose to prominence in the 1990s, when he became a public figure known as much for his lavish lifestyle as for the database company behind his fortune.
He was Oracle’s chief executive until 2014 and is now the company’s chairman and chief technology officer.
And he has positioned himself as an ally to President Trump.
When Trump returned to the White House in January, Ellison appeared alongside OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son to announce a project called Stargate, to build out AI infrastructure in the US.
Oracle has also emerged as a possible buyer of TikTok, the app owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance. TikTok is facing a ban in the US unless it divests itself of its ByteDance ownership.
In January, when asked whether he was open to Musk buying TikTok, Trump responded: “I’d like Larry to buy it, too.”
Ellison’s media ambitions extend beyond TikTok.
He funded the bulk of a $8bn bid by his son to acquire Paramount, which owns CBS and MTV.
That deal between Paramount and the media company Skydance, which is controlled by his son David, closed last month.
Prize draws such as Omaze and McDonald’s Monopoly are normalising gambling, particularly for children and young people, a charity has warned.
GambleAware said survey findings suggested a link between prize draws such as Omaze and McDonald’s Monopoly and gambling harm, with latest data suggesting that 27% of people who gamble are estimated to be experiencing a risk of problems from taking part in such games.
Prize draws are not currently regulated as a licensed form of gambling, but GambleAware said they had “many similarities” to certain types of gambling and people “may not understand the risks associated with them”.
The charity raised its concerns about prize draws as it released its fifth annual Treatment and Support Survey data, finding that demand for treatment and support for gambling problems has almost doubled since 2020.
The YouGov survey found that almost one in three adults (30%) who are experiencing a risk of problems from gambling want treatment, support or advice, compared with around one in five (17%) in 2020.
The data also shows an increase in the proportion of adults who are experiencing problem gambling, up from 2.4% in 2020 to 3.8% in 2024.
The number of people affected by family or friend’s gambling has increased from 6.5% in 2020 to 8.1% in 2024 – an estimated 4.3 million adults.
The charity said estimates based on the YouGov survey suggested that around two million children may be living in households with an adult experiencing problem gambling.
GambleAware chief executive Zoe Osmond said: “Gambling can be highly addictive, with devastating impacts on people’s lives, relationships and financial stability.
“While it is encouraging that more people have sought help, this rise may also point to a growing public health crisis.
“We are increasingly alarmed by how gambling is being normalised and how frequently people – especially young people – are exposed to gambling across Great Britain.
“To reverse this troubling trend, urgent preventative action is needed. This must include tougher regulation of gambling advertising to stop gambling being portrayed as ‘harmless fun’.
“There should also be mandatory health warnings on all gambling ads, stricter controls on digital and social media marketing, and a full ban on gambling promotion in stadiums and sports venues to protect children and young people from harm.”
The report, which also explored attitudes towards children’s exposure to gambling, found widespread support for more restrictions on gambling advertising, with 91% supporting a ban on gambling advertising on TV and video games and 90% supporting a ban on social media.
Kate Gosschalk, YouGov associate director, said: “We are pleased to share the findings from the latest annual Treatment and Support Survey, a substantial online survey of around 18,000 people in addition to interviews with those who gamble.
“The new data provides valuable insight about gambling harm, including an increase in the number of people seeking support or treatment over the past five years.”
An Omaze spokesman said: “Omaze takes consumer safeguarding very seriously. We voluntarily operate an automated monthly spending limit for all customers, and our teams proactively review customer spend patterns to identify whether a customer has multiple subscriptions or if they frequently get close to the cap. This allows us to identify and protect against any potential excessive spend.
“We operate in full compliance with all relevant UK regulations.
“As a part of our commitment to high standards, we are subject to strict requirements under the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) and abide by all of its rules in promoting our products.
“Omaze welcomes the Government’s latest research and plans on the prize draw sector. We are pleased to be working closely with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to develop a voluntary Code of Conduct for the industry, to ensure that Omaze’s high levels of consumer protections are matched across our industry.”
Business
Former Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry says he doesn’t believe L.A. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer circumvented salary cap
Former Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry said he doesn’t believe L.A. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer attempted to circumvent the NBA’s salary cap by working with a third-party company to surreptitiously pay superstar Kawhi Leonard in 2021
“It’s not something I would ever believe,” Lasry told CNBC in an exclusive interview. “I’ve always found him to follow the rules and do what’s right.”
Journalist and podcast host Pablo Torre reported earlier this month that Leonard had signed a $28 million sponsorship deal with a company called Aspiration. The deal required the NBA forward to do almost nothing with Aspiration to collect the money.
Ballmer invested $50 million in Aspiration. Torre reported that sources from within Aspiration told him the purpose of the deal was for the Clippers to circumvent the league’s salary cap by paying Leonard more money off the books. The NBA has begun an investigation based on his reporting.
Lasry said there’s always pressure to win in the NBA, but “there’s not pressure to skirt the rules.”
“In the NBA, everybody knows the rules. You follow it, and it’s because you know that if you don’t, you’re just going to get in a lot of trouble,” he said.
Ballmer and the Clippers have denied the allegations of salary cap circumvention. Aspiration filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and its co-founders have been charged with fraud.
“I think it’s probably a lot of smoke, but I don’t think there’s much there,” said Lasry.
Lasry agreed to sell his stake in the Bucks in 2023 to Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam at a $3.5 billion valuation.
Business
Oracle’s Larry Ellison Overtakes Elon Musk To Become World’s Richest After $101 Billion Gain
Last Updated:
Larry Ellison surpasses Elon Musk as the world’s richest person with a $393 billion net worth after Oracle’s record-breaking quarterly performance.
Oracle founder Larry Ellison. (File)
Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, has surpassed Tesla CEO Elon Musk to become the world’s richest person with a net worth of $393 billion.
As per the Bloomberg report, Oracle’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) saw his wealth increase by $101 billion following Oracle Corporation’s exceptional quarterly performance.
Ellison’s net worth soared by $101 billion as of 10:10 am in New York on Wednesday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That pushed his wealth to $393 billion, surpassing Musk at $385 billion.
The one-day increase is the largest ever recorded by the index, surpassing the $63 billion gain Elon Musk registered in December 2023.
Shares of the company jumped more than 40% in early trade on Wednesday, reaching an all-time high in their sharpest single-day rise since the dot-com boom of 1999. The company’s shares experienced a sharp rise after Oracle announced a strong growth projection on Tuesday evening. Shares of Tesla Inc., by contrast, went down 13% this year.
Ellison, 81, co-founded Oracle in 1977 and still holds around 1.16 billion shares, making him the company’s largest shareholder.
Meanwhile, Musk became the world’s richest person for the first time in 2021 before losing the title to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and LVMH’s Bernard Arnault. He reclaimed it last year and had held it for just over 300 days.
Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at News18.com and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from Ben…Read More
Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at News18.com and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from Ben… Read More
New York, United States of America (USA)
September 10, 2025, 22:24 IST
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