India, Sept. 11 -- Larry Ellison is in rarefied air and unenviable company, but it's the rest of the richest of the rich that are gasping at the eye-watering surge in net worth.

In a stunning few minutes after markets opened on Wednesday, the stock of Ellison's Oracle Corp. rocketed by a third, enough for him to temporarily wrest the title of "the world's richest person" from longtime holder Elon Musk. But the stock market is fickle, and Musk was back at the top by the end of the day.

The brief switch in the rankings came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle, powered by multi-billion-dollar deals in the AI cloud business. The story of Musk's Tesla Inc. is exactly the opposite-its market share in the US is at its lowest since ...