He briefly dethroned Elon Musk as the world’s richest man. See his Florida digs
Elon Musk was dethroned as the richest man in the world last week. OK, Larry Ellison was up there just temporarily, but still, not too shabby a feat.
Last Wednesday, the Oracle chairman’s net worth skyrocketed more than $100 billion after his software company gave a bullish outlook for new AI deals.
Bloomberg reported Ellison, who co-founded Oracle in 1977, briefly topped Musk on its Billionaires Index. Roughly a week later, the Tesla/SpaceX king is back on top, worth approximately $429B on Tuesday, with Ellison trailing by $70B-ish.
But still, that us got thinking about Ellison, and his immense, almost unfathomable wealth.
While Musk is notorious for living relatively simply — save for that $35 million compound in Austin, Texas, for the South African’s enormous brood — Ellison is known for having one of the most extensive real estate portfolios in the world.
Though the native New Yorker, 81, reportedly spends most of his time in Hawaii (he basically owns the entire island of Lana’i), the tech mogul also can lay his head at luxe properties in California; Rhode Island; Japan; Nevada; and naturally, Florida, where he has not one, but two places, in Palm Beach County.
Mansion No. 1 is a sprawling, waterfront estate in the ultra-exclusive Seminole Landing enclave of North Palm Beach along the Intracoastal Waterway. Ellison bought this Tuscan-style masterpiece in 2021 for a cool $80 million. The 15,500-square-foot, seven-bedroom manse conveniently has its own movie theater, wine cellar and helipad for easy commutes.
Mansion No. 2 is a doozy, the third priciest home ever sold in the United States and the Sunshine State’s most expensive house, period. Ellison bought the estate in the barrier island of Manalapan (where he owns the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa) from Netscape founder Jim Clark in a record-breaking $173 million in 2022.
The jaw dropping, 62,000-square-foot behemoth was once owned by the Ziff publishing dynasty and is known in rich-people circles by the name “Gemini.” There’s ample room for 12 bedrooms and countless bathrooms (seriously, we stopped counting at 30). Outside are a PGA-standard golf course, pool, dock, sports complex, and animal sanctuaries. The compound even has a Florida-friendly underground tunnel in case of weather issues.
Believe it or not: A man with so incredibly much, is actually quite humble. That’s according to Julian Guthrie who spent a lot of time interviewing him for the book “The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed up to Win Sailing’s Greatest Race, the Americas Cup, Twice.”
“Larry is very different from the caricature of Larry,” the author told The New York Post. “He is introspective, self-deprecating, incessantly inquisitive, a voracious reader of all sorts of things. 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.”
This story was originally published September 16, 2025 at 3:08 PM.
