Daniel KayBusiness Reporter
Getty ImagesElon Musk temporarily lost his title as the richest person in the world of Oracle co-founder and US President Donald Trump ally Larry Ellison.
Ellison's wealth surged to $3930 billion (£2900 billion) on Wednesday morning, surpassing $3850 billion (£28.4 billion), according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.
Jump has surged more than 40% after its shares in Oracle, a significant portion of Ellison's fortune, boosted by the database software company's incredibly rosy outlook for cloud infrastructure business and artificial intelligence (AI) trading.
However, the company's stock price dumped some of those profits by the end of the day and brought the mask back to the top.
Before losing it to Ellison temporarily, Musk held the title of the world's wealthiest person for nearly a year.
The board of directors of electric vehicle companies could receive a pay package that exceeds $100 million (£740 billion) if it hits the list of ambitious targets over the next decade.
But stocks in Tesla, Musk's most valuable business, fell this year.
The electric car maker is tackling consumer backlash over Musk's political involvement, as well as investors' fears over rollback of the Trump administration's electric car initiative.
Oracle has been driven recently by increasing demand for data center infrastructure.
The company predicted revenue from the cloud business will rise 77% this year, with more growth in the coming years as part of its quarterly revenue report on Tuesday.
Oracle has reported a surge in demand for AI companies' data centers, which has helped to dramatically increase its stock.
He signed a multi-billion dollar deal with customers in the last quarter and is anticipating several more deals in the coming months, chief executive Safra Catz said Tuesday.
Trump's bonds and media ambitions
Ellison, 81, helped launch Oracle in 1977 and became famous in the 1990s when he became a public figure known for his luxurious lifestyle, as well as the database company behind his fortune.
He was Oracle's CEO until 2014 and is now the company's chairman and chief technology officer.
And he positioned himself as an ally to President Trump.
When Trump returned to the White House in January, Ellison announced a project called Stargate with Open's Sam Altman and the son of Softbank's Masayoshi, building an AI infrastructure in the United States.
Oracle also appeared as a buyer of Tiktok, an app owned by Chinese internet company Baitedan. Tiktok faces a ban in the United States unless it sells its ownership of the ordinance.
When asked in January if he was open to masks to buy Tiktok, Trump replied, “I want Larry to buy it too.”
Ellison's media ambitions go beyond Tiktok.
He funded most of his son's $8 billion bid to acquire Paramount, which owns CBS and MTV.
That deal between Paramount and media company SkyDance is managed by his son David and was closed last month.
