Behind $100 Billion Spike — How Oracle Co-Founder Larry Ellison Became World's Richest Man

Oracle Corp.'s co-founder Larry Ellison became the world's richest man on Wednesday, surpassing Tesla chief Elon Musk after Oracle shares gained 41%. Ellison's journey from a college dropout to co-founding the world's biggest technology company is inspiring in its own way.

He was raised on the south side of Chicago by his mother's aunt and uncle who adopted him when he was nine months old. He has dropped out from both the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago. He later moved to Berkeley, California and picked a programming job at Ampex. It was here that he worked on the database called Oracle for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Oracle was founded by him and his two partners in 1977. The company sold shares in the initial public offering on March 12, 1986. This was just a day after Microsoft Corp.'s IPO. However, in 2014 he stepped down as the Chief Executive Officer of the tech giant and took the roles of chairman and chief technology officer.

Over the years, the tech company has invested billions of dollars to become a provider of cloud infrastructure, and offer computing power and storage over the internet. The company has gained from its enthusiasm for artificial intelligence as startups and other firms look for more capacity. More recently, the company has found success in the competitive market cloud computing infrastructure, which is dominated by rivals such as Amazon.com Inc.

The shares of the company tripled since the public release of ChatGPT in November. Oracle in July signed a contract with ChatGPT operator OpenAI for 4.5 gigawatts worth of data center capacity. It also counts companies like Nvidia Corp. and ByteDance Ltd.'s TikTok as the major cloud customer. It was around this time that he eclipsed Mark Zuckerberg to become the world's second wealthiest person and less than two months later he was within striking distance of Elon Musk for the number one spot.

Ellison has also benefited from a close relationship with US President Donald Trump. Since Trump was elected, he has rewarded the company by elevating it on multiple occasions. Ellison and his company are part of a $500 billion AI infrastructure project that is called Stargate. This project was touted in January by the US president. Trump has also expressed support towards the company for acquiring the US business of TikTok.

All of these together have led to the rise in shares through this year. On Tuesday, Oracle reported quarterly results that blew past Wall Street expectations and projected even stronger growth ahead. The announcement sent the company’s shares soaring more than 26% in extended trading — its biggest one-day gain since 1999. After this the billionaire saw his fortune swell by a staggering $70 billion.

It hit an all-time high on Wednesday as it provided an aggressive outlook for its cloud business. This was a win for the company that was already having a good year. The chairperson and chief technology officer of Oracle’s fortune soared $101 billion as of 10:10 a.m. in New York on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg. The increase lifted his total fortune to $393 billion, surpassing Musk who is at $385 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Additionally, the 81-year-old owns more than 40% of the Austin, Texas-based Oracle, which constitutes to the majority of his wealth. He also owns a stake in Musk's electric-vehicle maker Tesla, a sailing team, the Indian Wells tennis event and real estate, including Hawaii's Lanai Island.