Oracle’s Late AI Bet Sends Shares Soaring, Ellison Tops Musk as World's Richest Man

Core Insights - Oracle Corp. stock surged by as much as 40% in intraday trading, marking a record for companies valued over $500 billion, driven by a successful AI strategy [1] Revenue Growth - Oracle's Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) business is projected to generate $18 billion in revenue for the current fiscal year, with expectations to grow to $32 billion by fiscal year 2027, and eventually reach $144 billion in the following three years [2] Future Business Pipeline - Oracle's "remaining performance obligations" (RPO) increased by 359% year-over-year to $455 billion, indicating a substantial backlog of booked but unrecognized revenue [3] - CEO Safra Catz expressed optimism about future growth, stating that most of the multiyear growth is already secured, with more multibillion-dollar contracts anticipated soon [3][4] AI Infrastructure Positioning - Oracle's strategic alliances, particularly with OpenAI and SoftBank, position it as a preferred compute provider in the AI infrastructure space [5] - The company claims to offer unique AI inferencing capabilities that allow running models like ChatGPT and Gemini directly within its database stack, distinguishing it from competitors [5] Market Impact - The stock surge resulted in Larry Ellison surpassing Elon Musk to become the world's richest person, with his net worth increasing by approximately $100 billion to around $393–400 billion [6] - Analysts have raised concerns about Oracle's aggressive capital expenditures, estimating $35 billion for building data centers and AI chip supply, which may impact free cash flow and margins in the short term [6]