Larry Ellison slipped behind Jeff Bezos on Forbes’ richest list after Oracle shares fell sharply this week, cutting Ellison’s fortune by more than $10 billion and pushing him into fifth place among the world’s richest people. Forbes estimated Ellison’s net worth at $247.8 billion on Wednesday night, after Oracle stock fell 4% in after-hours trading.
The move mattered because Ellison, whose wealth is tied heavily to Oracle, had briefly passed Elon Musk for part of one day in 2025 and has remained one of the most volatile names near the top of the billionaire rankings. Bezos was estimated at $248.8 billion, enough to move ahead of him, while the stock slide continued Thursday with Oracle shares falling double digits.
The drop came even though Oracle posted results that would normally have reassured investors. The company said fourth-quarter revenue rose 21% from a year earlier, cloud infrastructure revenue jumped 93% to $5.8 billion, and it ended the quarter with remaining performance obligations of $638 billion. Oracle also affirmed its full-year guidance and forecast first-quarter revenue growth of 27% to 29%, with cloud revenue up 57% to 63%.
What rattled the market was the forward view rather than the quarter that just passed. Oracle beat analyst estimates and reported record fourth-quarter revenue, but weaker-than-expected guidance overshadowed the numbers, a reminder that investors were focused less on what the company had already booked than on how quickly its cloud business can keep accelerating. Ellison owns around 41% of Oracle stock, so even a relatively short selloff can move his paper fortune by billions of dollars.
His wealth is not only tied to Oracle. Ellison is also a shareholder in Tesla Inc and Paramount Skydance, and he is backing the Paramount Skydance deal with a guarantee of more than $40 billion through equity financing. He has also added an investment in the U.S. operation of TikTok, widening the range of assets that can move his net worth as markets reprice them.
The unanswered question now is how far Oracle shares will fall after Thursday’s decline and where Ellison’s fortune settles once the market absorbs the company’s guidance. For the moment, the ranking change is clear: a strong quarter was not enough to stop a stock selloff from knocking one of the world’s richest men back behind Bezos.
