U.S. technology giant Oracle’s shares surged by a massive 43% to a new record high on Wednesday. This historic jump has put the company on track to join the exclusive trillion-dollar club, with its market valuation now at approximately $913 billion. The surge also significantly boosted the wealth of co-founder Larry Ellison, whose net worth increased by nearly $100 billion to a total of around $392.6 billion. He is now closing in on Elon Musk in the race for the world’s richest person, with a gap of just $47.3 billion.
This massive stock increase follows Oracle’s announcement of four new multi-billion-dollar contracts to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) computing power. The most significant of these is reportedly a $300 billion deal with OpenAI, one of the largest cloud contracts ever signed. Under this agreement, Oracle will provide cloud computing services to OpenAI over the next five years. While Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud currently dominate the cloud computing market with a combined 65% share, this major win for Oracle signals a shifting landscape in the industry.
