Oracle founder and largest shareholder Larry Ellison jumped two spots on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index after the tech giant released a jaw-dropping forecast this week.
Just yesterday, Ellison’s net worth was $138 billion, but overnight it skyrocketed. From 14 to 152 billion dollars.
That’s largely because the 79-year-old owns more than 40% of the company’s cloud applications business, which saw shares rise 13% on June 11 after the company reported positive full-year financial results.
As a result of his sudden increase in wealth, Ellison has overtaken two other tech giants. Bloomberg Billionaires Index: Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and founder of Google parent company Alphabet Sergey Brin.
Although Ballmer and Breen saw increases in their wealth this year ($21.2 billion and $27.2 billion, respectively), it was not enough to surpass Ellison, whose wealth grew by $29.1 billion in 2024 alone, bringing him to record levels. record high.
The reason their collective wealth has grown so exponentially is Silicon Valley’s favorite term: artificial intelligence.
Let’s turn first to Oracle, in its bumper forecast published on TuesdayCEO Safra Katz said the organization has signed “the largest sales contracts in our history, driven by overwhelming demand for training large AI language models.”
Katz, who previously served as CFO at Oracle, continued: “During fiscal 2025, I expect continued strong demand for AI to drive Oracle sales…even higher.
“In the fourth quarter alone, Oracle signed more than 30 AI sales contracts totaling more than $12.5 billion, including a contract with OpenAI to train ChatGPT on Oracle Cloud.”
In addition to the contract with OpenAI, Oracle is also working more closely with Microsoft – the sponsor of the ChatGPT maker – and Google. During the earnings call, Ellison said, “As customers continue to choose and use multiple clouds, hyperscalers like Microsoft and Google are responding by interconnecting their clouds.
“Oracle recently signed an agreement with Google to connect our clouds… We expect the Oracle database to be available on Google Cloud this September.”
Ellison isn’t the only one
Other countries with ties to big tech companies have also seen their wealth rise this year thanks to, you guessed it, artificial intelligence. Overall, the super-rich have increased their wealth by at least $150 billion thanks to technology.
Take Brin, for example, who owns 41.8% of Alphabet’s Class B shares. 2023 Proxy Statement— and CEO Sundar Pichai, who owns 227,560 Class A shares. Both men have seen their fortunes grow thanks to revolutionary technology. I’m approaching billionaire status now. thanks to his salary package and shares.
Alphabet shares are up this year—up 28% year-over-year at the time of writing—but especially soared when earnings reported positive news about artificial intelligence. In one example, on April 25, the company announced results for the 12024 quarter and said that “our Gemini era is well underway” and continues to establish itself as a leader in the field of artificial intelligence.
The market liked what it heard and shared opened 15% higher the day after the announcement compared to the previous morning.
The same story happened with Ballmer and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. In April, Gates’ fortune grew by $2 billion on an earnings call that mentioned AI 50 times and CEO Satya Nadella talked about a slew of new AI deployments. He said: “We have the most powerful AI infrastructure, and it is used by our partner OpenAI, as well as Nvidia and leading AI startups such as Adept and Inflection to train large models.”
After the bell, Microsoft shares recorded their best one-day percentage gain since November 2022. Analysts also noted that the stock reached a major milestone in absolute terms – it had never previously risen more than $19.77 in a single session until it did so at the end. April.
Elsewhere, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth has grown thanks to a combination of his “year of efficiency” and his adventures in artificial intelligence. In January, Zuckerberg outlined a number of measures to optimize the company, and in February outlined a broader artificial intelligence strategy— since then, his fortune has grown from $63 billion to $181 billion a year. Bloomberg Billionaires Index.