Larry Ellison briefly soared past Elon Musk as the world’s richest person for the first time as shares in Oracle surged more than 40% on Wednesday.

Ellison, who co-founded Oracle and now serves as chairman, saw his fortune skyrocket by about $100 billion during the day to push his net worth to $395 billion, ahead of Musk’s $384 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Shares of Oracle hit a record high of $345.69, spiking 43%, before closing at 328.33 to settle 36% higher — its best day since 1992 — after the software giant announced jaw-dropping projections that it will reap half a trillion dollars in the future from its AI business.

Ellison, who owns about 1.16 billion shares of Oracle, ended up making $88.5 billion after the late selloff, dropping him behind Musk by just $1 billion, according to Bloomberg’s list.

Musk’s fortune, much of which is tied to his stake in Tesla, remained at $384 billion. The electric vehicle maker’s stock inched up .24% Wednesday.

The 81-year-old Ellison has added nearly $200 billion to his fortune this year, while Musk’s net worth has dropped by about $40 billion.

Oracle unveiled four multi-billion-dollar contracts on Tuesday, amid an industry-wide shift, led by companies such as OpenAI and xAI, to aggressively spend to secure the massive computing capacity needed to stay ahead in the AI race.

“We have signed significant cloud contracts with the who’s who of AI, including OpenAI, xAI, Meta and many others,” CEO Safra Catz said during a call with investors after the earnings report.

Those deals pushed Oracle’s Remaining Performance Obligations – or future revenue it will deliver based on contracts – up 359% to $455 billion.

The vast majority of this new revenue will come from OpenAI, which agreed to purchase $300 billion in computing power over roughly five years in a massive cloud contract, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Oracle expects to sign several more multibillion-dollar contracts, and for its RPO to exceed half a trillion dollars, Catz said.

The software company has made its fortune by stockpiling a massive supply of Nvidia AI chips and renting out its computing power through its cloud business to tech giants like Amazon and Google.

It expects its cloud revenue to jump to $144 billion by its 2030 fiscal year – a massive spike from its projection of less than $20 billion in its current fiscal year.

“We expect Oracle Cloud Infrastructure revenue to grow 77% to $18 billion this fiscal year – and then increase to $32 billion, $73 billion, $114 billion, and $144 billion over the subsequent four years,” Catz said Tuesday.

Like many others in the industry, Oracle has funneled billions of dollars into its AI investments. To save on costs, the company has laid off workers and reportedly discussed eliminating raises and bonuses for employees this year.

Oracle saw its stock roar full-steam ahead despite reporting earnings that slightly missed estimates on Tuesday.

It reported revenue of $14.9 billion in the first quarter, slightly below projections of $15 billion, and adjusted earnings per share of $1.47, which missed estimates of $1.48.

Capital expenditures will jump to roughly $35 billion in 2026, up from previous estimates of around $25 billion for the year, the company added.

In June, Oracle said it had clinched a new deal set to bring in over $30 billion in annual revenue starting in its 2028 fiscal year. Several media outlets reported the customer was OpenAI.

Ellison’s software giant is also involved in Stargate, a massive $500 billion AI infrastructure deal involving OpenAI and SoftBank that President Trump unveiled at the White House in January.

Stargate, which was created to ramp up AI data center construction in the US, has sharply scaled back its short-term plans as its partners have struggled to complete deals, the Wall Street Journal reported in July.