Larry Ellison dethroned Elon Musk: from the Bronx to the top of the wealth world

September 10, 2025 marked a turning point in the history of tech magnates. Larry Ellison, 81 years old, took the title of the world’s richest person from Elon Musk, who had held it for years. In just a few hours, Ellison’s fortune surged over $100 billion, reaching $393 billion, pushing Musk to second place with $385 billion. This moment symbolizes more than a simple redistribution of wealth: it represents the resurgence of an entrepreneurial era and the late victory of someone once considered behind in the tech revolution.

From Abandonment in the Bronx to the Engine of Silicon Valley

Larry Ellison was born in 1944 in the Bronx, New York, the son of a 19-year-old single mother who couldn’t support him. At nine months old, he was handed over to an aunt in Chicago to be raised. His childhood was spent in a working-class home, where his adoptive father was a public employee with limited resources. Despite financial hardships, Ellison managed to enter the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, but after his adoptive mother’s death in his second year, he dropped out.

His formal education remained erratic. He tried again at the University of Chicago, attending only one semester before leaving again. However, this apparent lack of direction masked a genuine search. After leaving academia, Ellison wandered across the U.S., doing occasional programming jobs in Chicago before heading to Berkeley, California, where he saw a different world: a place where “people seemed freer and smarter.”

The turning point in his life came in the early 1970s when he worked at Ampex Corporation, a company specializing in audiovisual storage and data processing. There, he participated in a project for the CIA: designing a database system capable of managing data efficiently. This project, called “Oracle,” became the catalyst for his future.

Oracle is Born: Seeing Opportunity Where Others Only Saw Code

In 1977, Ellison, along with Bob Miner and Ed Oates, invested just $2,000 (Ellison contributed $1,200) to found Software Development Laboratories. Their vision was revolutionary but simple: turn database technology into a universal commercial product. In 1986, Oracle went public on Nasdaq, quickly becoming a star in the enterprise software market.

Ellison was not the inventor of database technology, but perhaps the first to truly understand its commercial value. With a combative and competitive personality, he held nearly every executive position. He led the company from 1978 to 1996, was chairman of the board from 1990 to 1992, and although he delegated the CEO role in 2014, he continued as executive chairman and CTO.

For over four decades, Oracle experienced cycles of glory and turbulence. It dominated the database market but seemed left behind during the cloud computing revolution, when Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure gained ground. However, its fundamental strength in data infrastructure and its connection with enterprise clients kept it a key player in the sector.

Paradigm Shift: When AI Restored the Throne

What some perceived as weakness became an advantage. On September 10, 2025, Oracle announced contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars, including a five-year, $300 billion collaboration with OpenAI. Shares soared over 40% in a single day, the biggest jump since 1992.

The market, engaged in the AI infrastructure race, discovered that Oracle possessed exactly what was needed: massive data processing capacity, cutting-edge data centers, and infrastructure prepared for the era of generative AI. While in summer 2025 the company laid off several thousand employees from traditional hardware and software divisions, it simultaneously increased massive investments in data centers and AI infrastructure, transforming from an “old software company” into the “dark horse of AI infrastructure.”

This shift was no accident. While Elon Musk divided his attention among Tesla, X, Neuralink, and other ventures, Ellison remained focused, methodically adapting Oracle to new market realities. Specialization triumphed over diversification, at least in this round.

The Ellison Dynasty: Technology, Hollywood, and Political Power

Ellison’s wealth transcended personal bounds years ago, expanding into a family empire. His son, David Ellison, recently acquired Paramount Global (parent company of CBS and MTV) for $8 billion, with $6 billion coming from family funds. This move marks the Ellison dynasty’s entry into Hollywood, creating an unprecedented setup: the father controls Silicon Valley through Oracle, the son dominates the entertainment industry.

In the political arena, Ellison is also a recurring figure. A consistent donor to the Republican Party, in 2015 he funded Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign; in 2022, he contributed $150 million to the super PAC of Senator Tim Scott. In January 2026, he appeared at the White House alongside SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to announce the construction of a $500 billion AI data center network, with Oracle as the technological core.

At 81: The Rebel Who Prefers Candles, Discipline, and a New Marriage

Contradictions define Ellison like few others. He owns 98% of Lanai Island in Hawaii, multiple mansions in California, and world-class yachts, yet practices almost monastic self-discipline. In 1992, he nearly died surfing, but the near-death experience didn’t stop him; it simply redirected his passion to sailing.

In 2013, the Oracle Team USA he funded staged an epic comeback in the America’s Cup and won the trophy. In 2018, he founded SailGP, a high-speed catamaran league that now attracts investors like actress Anne Hathaway and footballer Kylian Mbappé. Tennis is another obsession: he revitalized the Indian Wells tournament in California, known as “the fifth Grand Slam.”

His discipline is his secret to staying vital at 81. In his youth, he dedicated hours daily to exercise, drank only water and green tea, and obsessively controlled his diet. He rarely drank sugary beverages. This discipline allows him to look “twenty years younger than his peers,” according to associates.

In his personal life, Ellison has been through four marriages. In 2024, he quietly married Jolin Zhu, a Chinese-born woman from Shenyang, a University of Michigan graduate, who is 47 years his junior. The news was revealed through documents from the University of Michigan mentioning a donation from “Larry Ellison and his wife Jolin.” This new marriage rekindled interest in his private life. Some joke that for Ellison, both the waves and marriage are equally irresistible adventures.

Philanthropy Without Commitments: Designing a Future on His Terms

In 2010, Ellison signed the “Giving Pledge,” committing to donate at least 95% of his fortune. However, unlike Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, he rarely participates in collective initiatives. In an interview with The New York Times, he stated, “I value my solitude and do not wish to be influenced by external ideas.”

In 2016, he donated $200 million to the University of Southern California to create an oncology research center. Recently, he announced that part of his wealth will fund the Ellison Institute of Technology, a collaboration with Oxford University focused on health, agriculture, and clean energy research.

His philanthropic approach is deeply personal: he does not seek to join his billionaire peers but to independently design a future aligned with his vision. On social media, he wrote: “We want to develop a new generation of life-saving medicines, build low-cost agricultural systems, and generate clean, efficient energy.”

The Legacy: When the Lagging Pioneer Becomes the Victor

Larry Ellison, at 81, finally reached the peak others occupied before. Starting as an abandoned orphan in the Bronx, he built an empire based on databases, and when it seemed technology had left him behind, the AI revolution restored his glory. His displacement of Elon Musk from the top spot is not just about numbers; it’s the triumph of adaptation over diversification, of specialization over dispersion.

The “rebel” of Silicon Valley never gave up. With his marriages, sailing, unwavering discipline, and business vision, Ellison proved that in an era transformed by AI, old tech titans still have stories to write. The throne of the world’s wealthiest may change hands again, but for now, Ellison has reminded the world that tech races are not always won by the youngest, but by the most adaptable.