Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison briefly overtook Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the second-richest person in the world on Monday, September 16. However, Bezos has since reclaimed the number 2 spot on Forbes’ real-time billionaires list, which he has held on and off since 2016. Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s net worth of $251 billion continues to keep him at the top of the list. Ellison’s rise in wealth comes on the back of a surge in Oracle stock, which closed up 5.1 per cent on Monday, September 16. Shares of the enterprise software giant rallied to 20 per cent this month, making it the best they have performed since October 2022, when Oracle stock touched 28 per cent. With the shares jump, Ellison’s net worth has risen by $8.1 billion to reach roughly $206 billion, according to Forbes. Last week, the Austin-based company reported earnings that surpassed expectations and further pushed up its 2026 revenue projections. At the earnings call, Ellison said that Oracle is planning to build data centers amid an increasing demand for computing power due to the generative AI boom. The company is also looking to join hands with Amazon to enable its database services on dedicated hardware, similar to Oracle’s partnerships with Microsoft and Google. “We are literally building the smallest, most portable, most affordable cloud data centers all the way up to 200-megawatt data centers, ideal for training very large language models and keeping them up to date,” Ellison was quoted as saying. He also expressed concerns over the role of AI in enabling mass surveillance by law enforcement. “We’re going to have supervision [.] Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times, and if there’s a problem, AI will report that problem and report it to the appropriate person. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on,” Ellison said.
