Larry Ellison Becomes World’s Second-Richest as Oracle Soars on AI Expansion and US Government Partnership

At 80 years old, Larry Ellison has overtaken Mark Zuckerberg to become the world’s second-richest person, with a net worth of $251 billion.

He’s gained nearly $60 billion in 2025 alone, largely due to a 41% rise in Oracle’s stock price.

Oracle has capitalized on global AI momentum, reporting Q4 revenue of $15.9 billion (up 11%) and performance obligations (future revenue) of $138 billion (up 41%).

The company announced a new $3 billion investment in Germany and the Netherlands to boost AI and cloud infrastructure in Europe.

Oracle is a founding member of Stargate, a White House-backed initiative to invest $500 billion over four years into US AI infrastructure.

Partners include SoftBank, OpenAI, MGX, Arm, Microsoft, and Nvidia. Ellison was prominently featured during the project’s launch and is considered a key figure in the U.S.’s AI strategy under Trump’s second term.

Investor enthusiasm has driven Oracle’s recent rally, but analysts like Goldman Sachs remain cautious. They maintain a ‘neutral’ rating. They explained:

“While we are encouraged by the clear OCI [Oracle Cloud Infrastructure] demand momentum, we continue to see risk that Oracle may over-index investments to the low-margin and capital-intensive training cycle, which may weigh on FCF generation for the foreseeable future.”

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has also soared in wealth, passing Warren Buffett to become worth $149 billion. The AI boom continues to reshape the billionaire leaderboard, heavily favoring executives tied to generative AI and infrastructure.

Ellison reaffirmed and amended his Giving Pledge, emphasizing a new focus on direct scientific impact through the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) at Oxford.

“EIT’s humane endeavors include transforming healthcare by designing and distributing a new generation of life-saving drugs, combating world hunger by engineering higher-yielding crops and building a global network of low-cost indoor growing systems, and slowing climate change by developing efficient clean energy generation and storage systems,” Ellison stated. “So, I am amending my giving pledge and promising to do more—by concentrating my resources on the Institute. I believe this will improve our chances of delivering practical solutions to the problems of hunger, healthcare, and climate change.”

Ellison said he now aims to concentrate his giving on projects where science and technology can drive practical, global solutions.

“There are additional ways that I would like to invest my time and resources in giving back to the world we share,” he wrote in an X post.

The original reporting by Eleanor Pringle for Fortune.