Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison delivers a keynote at the Moscone Center in San Francisco during the Oracle OpenWorld 2011 on Oct. 2, 2011 in California. Photo by AFP
Larry Ellison, the 80-year-old co-founder of database firm Oracle, has surpassed Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg to become the world’s second richest man with a net worth of US$254 billion.
Shares of the tech giant surged to a historic peak of over $200 after the company posted earnings that surpassed Wall Street’s expectations last Wednesday, according to Fortune.
For the 2025 fiscal year ending last month, Oracle reported an 8% jump in total revenue to $57.4 billion, an adjusted earnings per share of $1.70, and an all-time high sales of $15.9 billion.
The firm’s stock climbed 13% just a day after the results were announced, then gained another 7% by last Friday afternoon to hit an unprecedented $215 per share.
Ellison, who co-founded Oracle in 1977 and holds a roughly 41% stake, saw his wealth skyrocket, rising $25 billion on Thursday and by another $16 billion the next day, Forbes reported.
With that boost, Ellison has leapfrogged Amazon’s Bezos, whose fortune stands at $227.2 billion, and Meta’s Zuckerberg, at $240.1 billion, in the global wealth rankings.
Oracle’s strong financial performance reflects its strategic foothold in the intensifying global AI competition. Ellison has highlighted his company’s deep integration inside enterprise data architecture as an edge that has helped it compete against other major players, according to Benzinga.
“Oracle is already prospering in this new era of cloud computing and AI, and it’s just the beginning,” he said in the firm’s earnings call last Friday.
A heavyweight in enterprise software, Oracle generates much of its revenue from cloud infrastructure and data solutions. It is also hosting the U.S. data of popular social media platform TikTok.
