By: Carl Schwartzbaum

When Elon Musk was asked in an interview to name the smartest person he had ever met, the mercurial Tesla chief didn’t hesitate. “Larry Ellison is very smart,” Musk said. “I would say he is one of the smartest.”

Last week, Ellison briefly proved himself not only among the smartest, but also the richest. As The New York Post reported on Saturday, the Oracle founder’s fortune surged by a staggering $101 billion in a single day — the largest one-day gain ever recorded in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That meteoric jump, which vaulted Ellison’s net worth to $382 billion, momentarily pushed him past Musk for the top spot in global wealth rankings. By the end of trading, Musk clawed his way back ahead by a hair’s breadth, but Ellison had already achieved a milestone he had reportedly been awaiting for nearly half a century.

“He’s been waiting for this moment for almost 50 years,” a source told The Post, noting that Ellison had long harbored ambitions not just to build one of Silicon Valley’s most formidable companies, but to secure the recognition that eluded Oracle in the public imagination. Unlike consumer-facing brands such as Microsoft, Apple, or Google, Oracle has remained, for decades, the infrastructure company powering corporate and government systems behind the scenes. For Ellison, the title of “world’s richest man” became a symbolic marker of validation.

Ellison’s windfall was triggered by one of the biggest artificial intelligence announcements of the year. Sam Altman’s Open AI struck a $300 billion agreement for Oracle to build massive data centers that will support the training of its next-generation AI models. The contract instantly positioned Oracle as a primary power broker in the AI revolution, a development that Gary Rivlin, author of The Plot to Get Bill Gates and AI Valley, described to The Post as transformative.

“Data centers are the biggest revenue generators,” Rivlin explained. “Oracle has aggressively entered that world and they just got their first big tenant.” For Ellison, it was a vindication of his long-term bet that Oracle’s future would not merely be software licensing, but providing the backbone infrastructure for the next technological epoch.

The deal also underscored Ellison’s knack for spotting market shifts and seizing them early. Just as he had anticipated the importance of databases in the 1970s, he now has Oracle positioned at the center of the AI arms race.

For decades, Ellison has occupied an outsized place in Silicon Valley mythology — the playboy billionaire with the yachts, fighter jets, and sprawling mansions. But those who know him insist the caricature barely scratches the surface.

Julian Guthrie, who spent a year interviewing Ellison for her biography The Billionaire and the Mechanic, told The Post that Ellison is “very different from the caricature.” She described him as introspective, self-deprecating, and insatiably curious, with passions that extend far beyond software.

His interests, Guthrie noted, range from “music, sports, material science” to Japanese pottery. Indeed, Ellison is renowned for his devotion to Japanese culture, a fascination expressed through his vast collection of Japanese art — covering more than a millennium of history — and his estates designed in the style of Kyoto. He owns an $86 million villa within the grounds of a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, as well as a 23-acre California property that resembles a traditional Japanese retreat, complete with tea house and koi pond.

Such pursuits reveal a man who finds inspiration not just in financial markets but in aesthetics, philosophy, and craftsmanship. “He gets a lot of pleasure out of beautifully designed [things],” Guthrie told The Post.

While Ellison has cultivated his public image as a Silicon Valley titan, his family has also become influential in their own right. With his third wife, Barbara Boothe, Ellison fathered David and Megan Ellison, both of whom are reshaping Hollywood. David is CEO and chairman of Paramount, through Skydance, while Megan has produced critically acclaimed films such as American Hustle and Phantom Thread.

In Guthrie’s view, Ellison has come to prioritize family over fame. “He’s comfortable with who he is. But it’s more about this awareness of what’s most important: It’s your family, it’s your immediate group, it’s your kids,” she told The Post.

Ellison is currently married to his fifth wife, Jolin Zhu, 34, a sign that even at 81, the billionaire’s personal life continues to evolve alongside his professional empire.

Ellison’s newfound peak wealth may have been historic, but his taste for the extravagant long predates this week’s financial headlines. His real estate portfolio is legendary: more than a dozen homes, including a $173 million Florida compound, a San Francisco mansion, a Newport, Rhode Island estate once owned by the Astor family, and of course his Japanese-style retreat in Woodside.

Perhaps his most audacious purchase, however, remains the Hawaiian island of Lanai, 98% of which he bought in 2012. The island, once a pineapple plantation, now hosts luxury Four Seasons resorts, lush gardens, and golf courses curated under Ellison’s direction. With a population of only 3,000, Lanai is effectively his private kingdom, where he is the main employer and de facto steward of the island’s development.

Transportation to and from his island kingdom is never an issue. Ellison owns two military jets, which he pilots himself, as well as the 288-foot superyacht Musashi. Named for the legendary samurai Miyamoto Musashi, the vessel is a floating palace designed in minimalist Japanese style. Costing $160 million, Musashi requires 23 crew members to operate and boasts five decks, a gym, spa, cinema, glass elevator, and even a basketball court.

As The New York Post reported, a powerboat follows behind to retrieve stray basketballs that bounce overboard. It’s the sort of detail that might seem satirical in an HBO parody of Silicon Valley, but for Ellison, it’s simply another reflection of his obsessive pursuit of perfection.

Ellison’s journey to the apex of global wealth is all the more remarkable given his humble beginnings. Born in the Bronx and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Ellison was adopted by his aunt and uncle after his biological mother, unable to care for him, gave him up. He dropped out of both the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago, bouncing between odd jobs before landing in California during the countercultural ferment of the late 1960s.

It was there that Ellison found his calling in computing. He became proficient in programming and, in 1977, co-founded Oracle Systems Corporation, naming the company after a CIA database project he had helped develop. Oracle quickly distinguished itself in the burgeoning database software market, and Ellison’s relentless ambition drove the company to become a cornerstone of corporate IT infrastructure.

By 2010, Forbes listed him as the sixth richest man in America, with a net worth of $28 billion. As The Post has often pointed out, Ellison’s rise was not simply a function of technical genius but also his aggressive business style: he poached talent with massive bonuses, pushed hard into new markets, and positioned Oracle as indispensable to global corporations.

Ellison’s influence extends far beyond business and into politics. A longtime supporter of Donald Trump, Ellison hosted the then-president at his Rancho Mirage estate during Trump’s administration. Trump himself once called Ellison “sort of CEO of everything” and “an amazing man,” as The Post recounted.

Ellison’s political connections have been strategic as well as ideological. He has backed causes ranging from military readiness to research on aging, reflecting his belief in both technological progress and American strength.

His ties to Trump, Altman, and Japan’s Masayoshi Son demonstrate Ellison’s unusual ability to span ideological and cultural divides, positioning himself at the nexus of technology, politics, and global finance.

What, then, does the future hold for the 81-year-old Oracle founder? As Rivlin told The Post, “He’s not done yet. He’s always kept himself in really great shape. He’s given millions of dollars to research aging. That’s a big Silicon Valley thing. And, of course, Larry Ellison has been part of it because he’s part of everything in Silicon Valley.”

Ellison himself has hinted at no retirement. His obsession with excellence, coupled with his enduring curiosity, suggests he will continue to pursue new ventures, whether in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, or environmental sustainability.

Ellison’s brief reign as the world’s richest man may prove fleeting, as markets shift daily. Yet as The New York Post report observed, the symbolic weight of that achievement cannot be overstated. For a man whose company has long labored in the shadows of flashier tech giants, the moment represents both personal vindication and a recognition of Oracle’s central role in the digital age.

More than the yachts or the island kingdoms, it is Ellison’s ability to see around corners — to anticipate the future of databases, to bet on cloud services, and now to anchor the infrastructure of artificial intelligence — that cements his place as one of Silicon Valley’s most consequential figures.

For Musk, who once hailed Ellison as the smartest person he had ever met, there may be grudging acknowledgment that Ellison’s intelligence has translated into a level of wealth and influence rivaled by few in history. For Ellison himself, the title of “world’s richest man” is less a capstone than another milestone in a restless, ongoing quest to reshape technology, culture, and, perhaps, human longevity itself.

As Rivlin put it to The Post: “He’s always been part of everything in Silicon Valley. And he always.