Oracle founder Larry Ellison saw a $15 billion gain on Tuesday as the software company’s shares closed at a new high, marking the strongest day in over two years.
Ellison, who founded Oracle in 1977, is the company’s largest stakeholder, with a stake worth over $146 billion following the recent boost. Forbes ranks him as the fifth-wealthiest person in the world, trailing only Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and ahead of Warren Buffett.
Oracle stock climbed 12% to settle at $127.54, after the software company disclosed fiscal third-quarter profits that above analyst estimates. Revenue in the company’s cloud services and licenses support sector increased 12%, above expectations.
While Oracle was late to cloud infrastructure and has been on the periphery of the present artificial intelligence boom, rising demand for the company’s AI technology is allowing Ellison to highlight his company’s progress in the industry’s hottest market.
“We’re building an AI data center in the United States where you can park eight Boeing 747s nose-to-tail,” said Ellison, who is still Oracle’s CTO, during the results call. “We are building large numbers of data centers and some of those data centers are smallish, but some of those data centers are the largest AI data centers in the world.”
Oracle shares have risen 52% in the last year, increasing Ellison’s net worth by over $50 billion. The stock has beaten the S&P 500, which has risen 34% in the last year.
Unlike Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison has kept all of his equity rather than selling off pieces. According to FactSet, Ellison’s most recent Oracle stock transaction was a 7,000-share purchase in 2022, with no sales since 2016.
Bezos has sold more than 50,000 Amazon shares this year. Most recently, in mid-February, he sold more than 14 million shares of his company, worth approximately $2.4 billion.
