Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison briefly became the world’s richest person Wednesday morning after his company’s stock surged more than 36%, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk reclaimed the title by day’s end in a dramatic wealth battle that connected Newport to Wall Street’s artificial intelligence frenzy.
Ellison, who owns the historic Beechwood Mansion on prestigious Bellevue Avenue, temporarily bumped Musk from the top spot as Oracle posted its largest single-day stock jump ever. By market close, however, Musk had regained his position with $384.2 billion versus $383.2 billion for Ellison, according to Bloomberg’s wealth tracker.
The massive swing wasn’t driven by stellar quarterly results — Oracle’s revenue and profit actually came in below Wall Street expectations Tuesday evening. Instead, investors reacted to the cloud computing company’s aggressive projections for AI infrastructure growth.
Oracle CEO Safra Catz said the company’s cloud infrastructure revenue would grow 77% to $18 billion by May 2026, then skyrocket to $144 billion by 2030. The company also announced more than $300 billion worth of new deals, including contracts with OpenAI, Meta, Nvidia and Musk’s xAI, according to The Associated Press.
Ellison, 81, told analysts during an earnings call that Oracle would benefit not just from building AI computing centers but from running day-to-day AI systems “to run robots in factories, design drugs in laboratories, place bets in financial markets and automate legal and sales work at companies,” the AP reported.
“AI Changes Everything,” Ellison said on the call.
According to the Wall Street Journal, much of Oracle’s outlook hinges on revenue from OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, which remains unprofitable.
“Oracle’s outlook is so exuberant that if we’d gotten this sort of prediction from a less established company it might have been shrugged off as either a lie or a misplaced digit,” Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, told CNN.
Ellison’s Newport connection runs deep through his extensive real estate holdings along Bellevue Avenue. He acquired the Gilded Age Beechwood Mansion in 2010 for $10.5 million, then invested more than $100 million to transform the former Astor family estate into a private museum for his collection of 18th and 19th-century European art.
The tech billionaire has since expanded his Newport footprint by purchasing at least four additional properties along the avenue, including Seacliff in 2019. His acquisitions give him control of a continuous block of real estate between the renowned Rosecliff and Marble House mansions.
Meanwhile, Musk has been struggling to convince investors about Tesla’s future. Tesla stock has dropped 14% this year, the AP reported. The company’s sales in the European Union plunged 40% earlier this summer for the seventh consecutive month of declines, as customers balked at buying Tesla cars after Musk used his social media platform X to support extreme right-wing politicians, according to the AP.
Tesla has also been losing U.S. market share as buyers angry with Musk’s embrace of Donald Trump have stayed away from showrooms, the AP reported.
Oracle’s dramatic rise reflects the broader AI infrastructure boom. The company’s capital expenditures jumped to $35 billion this fiscal year — about 52% of revenue compared to just 13% in 2024.
“We’ve never seen such capital intensity from these previously large-free-cash-flow-generating businesses,” Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer of One Point BFG Wealth Partners, said in a note Wednesday.
Some analysts warned that Oracle’s meteoric rise echoes the dot-com bubble of 1999.
“While Oracle just knocked the cover off the ball, when I see one day market cap increases of such epic proportions, I can’t not think of what I witnessed in 1999,” Boockvar said, referencing the start of the dot-com crash.
For Oracle’s projections to materialize, AI companies like OpenAI must find sustainable paths to profitability — something that remains elusive as generative AI technology faces growing skepticism from consumers.
Oracle stock closed Wednesday at $328.33, a 36% jump. Tesla gained less than 1% to $347.79.
Ellison’s Newport investments demonstrate his long-term commitment to preserving the area’s Gilded Age heritage while establishing a significant presence in one of America’s most exclusive seaside communities.
AP writers Matt O’Brien in Providence, R.I., and Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this story.