Oracle soars on AI cloud gains, Ellison closes in on Musk as world's richest

Oracle shares surged about 43% to a record high on Wednesday, putting the company on track to join the elite trillion-dollar club and propelling co-founder Larry Ellison closer to the top of the world's richest list. The company unveiled four multi-billion-dollar contracts on Tuesday, amid an industry-wide shift, led by companies such as OpenAI and xAI, to aggressively spend to secure the massive computing capacity needed to stay ahead in the AI race. The stock was last up 36.7%, after rising to hit a record high of $345.69, set for its biggest one-day percentage jump since 1992. Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that OpenAI has signed a contract to purchase $300 billion in computing power from Oracle...