Oracle: Shares explode. Founder Ellison now almost as rich as Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Musk was recently considered by far the wealthiest person in the world, largely thanks to his stake in the electric car manufacturer. Ellison's fortune consists primarily of Oracle shares. Bloomberg's billionaire rankings are based on estimates.

Oracle is growing rapidly in the cloud business

The tech giant thrilled investors overnight into Wednesday with its forecast for the development of its cloud business. In the last quarter, cloud infrastructure revenue grew by 55 percent year-on-year to $3.3 billion. However, Oracle CEO Safra Catz (63) announced an increase of 77 percent to $18 billion for the current fiscal year – this forecast, in particular, excited investors, traders said. For the fiscal year ending at the end of May, Oracle is targeting cloud revenue of $144 billion.