Wall Street went slackjawed at Oracle’s supersized cloud revenue
vision, the stock popped, and Larry Ellison’s net worth sprinted toward Elon Musk
territory.
When a company famous for databases drops a revenue outlook that sounds
like a startup pitch deck delivered after three espressos, you get either get
raised eyebrows, or true amazement when the dust settles.
BREAKING: Oracle stock, $ORCL, surges over +23% after reporting earnings with a +359% increase in contracted revenue.
As we continue to reiterate, we are still so early in the AI Revolution. pic.twitter.com/ZuepvHiMZC
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) September 9, 2025
What’s all the fuss about? Oracle (ORCL) surged more than 25% in
Tuesday after-hours trading after saying its AI-driven cloud revenue could
reach $144 billion by fiscal 2030, up from under $20 billion this year. Yep.
You read that right.
Analysts
were certainly jolted, John DiFucci from Guggenheim Securities was “blown
away.” Derrick Wood of TD Cowen lauded a “momentous quarter.” But Brad Zelnick
of Deutsche Bank summed it best, and most simply when he saud, “We’re all kind
of in shock, in a very good way.”
The $144 Billion Line
The headline grabber was Oracle’s cloud ambition, fueled by artificial
intelligence (AI). Management
told investors to expect Oracle Cloud Infrastructure revenue to jump 77% to
about $18 billion this fiscal year, then keep climbing with a long-range path
that stretches to as much as $144 billion. Whether you call it a moonshot or a
plan with receipts, that figure is the one everyone will be quoting in decks
for the next quarter.
‘We’re all kind of in shock.’ Oracle’s revenue projections leave analysts slackjawed https://t.co/RYL8J95LBV
— CNBC (@CNBC) September 10, 2025
The Power of a Narrative
The math here is simple. A huge AI backlog plus a steeper growth ramp
equals a stock chart that looks like it discovered caffeine. Shares were up
over 25% in afterhours trading, and the market rewarded the audacity with a
rally that said investors are willing to pay up for capacity, contracts and a
credible lane in AI infrastructure. You do not need to believe every number to
see the narrative working on contact.
Ellison vs Musk: A Photo Finish?
Elon Musk faces competition for the title of “World’s Richest Man”.
And then there is the scoreboard that really drives conversation at
tech dinners. Bloomberg reports Larry
Ellison tacked roughly $70 billion onto his fortune as Oracle’s surge reset
expectations, leaving him closing in on Elon Musk for the title of world’s
richest person. If the stock keeps cooperating, the richest-human leader board
might soon feature a new name in the top slot. For a man who once bought a
Hawaiian island for fun, this is a different kind of trophy.
Elon Musk’s title of world’s richest man is under threat after Oracle’s Larry Ellison added $70 billion to his fortune in one day. Read more: https://t.co/pT5xfnEdYP
📷️: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/Bloomberg pic.twitter.com/8q4LiXH1gF
— Bloomberg (@business) September 10, 2025
Just for the record, the stock surge brought Ellison’s fortune to $364
billion, while Musk sits on a reported $384 billion. Let that sink in.
Musk remains the benchmark for mega-wealth and for being upstream of
several industrial narratives at once. What makes Ellison’s push interesting is
the engine behind it. This is not a meme-driven spike or a crypto sugar high.
It is a big, old-line software house convincing the market that it can leverage
its positioning to reap the full reward of the AI goldrush.
Rain on the Parade (Perhaps)
Oracle still has to turn rhetoric into recurring revenue, quarter after
quarter, while customers sort out AI budgets and regulators figure out how to
spell “computational intensity.” Even if the $144 billion figure is a
long-range waypoint, it now lives rent-free in every analyst model and in every
competitor’s anxiety dream. If execution lags, the same investors who cheered
will start measuring the distance between promise and delivery. For now, the
benefit of the doubt is Ellison’s to lose.
For more stories around the edge of finance and tech, visit our Trending section.
Wall Street went slackjawed at Oracle’s supersized cloud revenue
vision, the stock popped, and Larry Ellison’s net worth sprinted toward Elon Musk
territory.
When a company famous for databases drops a revenue outlook that sounds
like a startup pitch deck delivered after three espressos, you get either get
raised eyebrows, or true amazement when the dust settles.
BREAKING: Oracle stock, $ORCL, surges over +23% after reporting earnings with a +359% increase in contracted revenue.
As we continue to reiterate, we are still so early in the AI Revolution. pic.twitter.com/ZuepvHiMZC
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) September 9, 2025
What’s all the fuss about? Oracle (ORCL) surged more than 25% in
Tuesday after-hours trading after saying its AI-driven cloud revenue could
reach $144 billion by fiscal 2030, up from under $20 billion this year. Yep.
You read that right.
Analysts
were certainly jolted, John DiFucci from Guggenheim Securities was “blown
away.” Derrick Wood of TD Cowen lauded a “momentous quarter.” But Brad Zelnick
of Deutsche Bank summed it best, and most simply when he saud, “We’re all kind
of in shock, in a very good way.”
The $144 Billion Line
The headline grabber was Oracle’s cloud ambition, fueled by artificial
intelligence (AI). Management
told investors to expect Oracle Cloud Infrastructure revenue to jump 77% to
about $18 billion this fiscal year, then keep climbing with a long-range path
that stretches to as much as $144 billion. Whether you call it a moonshot or a
plan with receipts, that figure is the one everyone will be quoting in decks
for the next quarter.
‘We’re all kind of in shock.’ Oracle’s revenue projections leave analysts slackjawed https://t.co/RYL8J95LBV
— CNBC (@CNBC) September 10, 2025
The Power of a Narrative
The math here is simple. A huge AI backlog plus a steeper growth ramp
equals a stock chart that looks like it discovered caffeine. Shares were up
over 25% in afterhours trading, and the market rewarded the audacity with a
rally that said investors are willing to pay up for capacity, contracts and a
credible lane in AI infrastructure. You do not need to believe every number to
see the narrative working on contact.
Ellison vs Musk: A Photo Finish?
Elon Musk faces competition for the title of “World’s Richest Man”.
And then there is the scoreboard that really drives conversation at
tech dinners. Bloomberg reports Larry
Ellison tacked roughly $70 billion onto his fortune as Oracle’s surge reset
expectations, leaving him closing in on Elon Musk for the title of world’s
richest person. If the stock keeps cooperating, the richest-human leader board
might soon feature a new name in the top slot. For a man who once bought a
Hawaiian island for fun, this is a different kind of trophy.
Elon Musk’s title of world’s richest man is under threat after Oracle’s Larry Ellison added $70 billion to his fortune in one day. Read more: https://t.co/pT5xfnEdYP
📷️: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/Bloomberg pic.twitter.com/8q4LiXH1gF
— Bloomberg (@business) September 10, 2025
Just for the record, the stock surge brought Ellison’s fortune to $364
billion, while Musk sits on a reported $384 billion. Let that sink in.
Musk remains the benchmark for mega-wealth and for being upstream of
several industrial narratives at once. What makes Ellison’s push interesting is
the engine behind it. This is not a meme-driven spike or a crypto sugar high.
It is a big, old-line software house convincing the market that it can leverage
its positioning to reap the full reward of the AI goldrush.
Rain on the Parade (Perhaps)
Oracle still has to turn rhetoric into recurring revenue, quarter after
quarter, while customers sort out AI budgets and regulators figure out how to
spell “computational intensity.” Even if the $144 billion figure is a
long-range waypoint, it now lives rent-free in every analyst model and in every
competitor’s anxiety dream. If execution lags, the same investors who cheered
will start measuring the distance between promise and delivery. For now, the
benefit of the doubt is Ellison’s to lose.
For more stories around the edge of finance and tech, visit our Trending section.
