World's Richest Man Held 'Advanced Talks' to Take Over Premier League Club

Elon Musk was briefly surpassed in the week by another entrepreneur who once held 'advanced talks' about owning a Premier League club.

Musk is best known for being the CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla and also acquiring social media giant Twitter back in 2022, which he later rebranded as X.

The 54-year-old was also the senior advisor to US President Donald Trump as the start of his second term in the White House, before leaving the role at the end of May following a feud between the duo saw Musk create the America Party.

As of May this year, Forbes estimated Musk's net worth to be almost $425 billion - but he was briefly surpassed as the globe's richest man earlier this week.

Larry Ellison became the world's richest man briefly this week. (Image: Getty)

Larry Ellison is the executive chairman of software corporation Oracle, which he co-founded and he was the CEO of from 1977 to 2014.

Earlier this week on Wednesday, Ellison's net worth had $89 billion added to it and made an overall figure of $393 billion.

Combined with a drop in Musk's estimated net worth compared to the figure from Forbes earlier this year, it meant that Ellison was briefly the wealthiest person in the world, putting him also above the likes of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google co-founder Larry Page and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Musk re-took his place as the globe's richest individual on the same day following the end of trading, but only by $1 billion.

Larry Ellison, far right, briefly overtook Elon Musk, third from right, as the world's wealthiest person. (Image: Getty)

The sharp rise is Ellison's net worth was attributed to shares in Oracle - which is the title sponsor of the Red Bull F1 team - increasing in value by more than 40% following its positive outlook on its cloud infrastructure business and AI deals.

Back in 2016, it was reported that Ellison was in advanced talks to buy a Premier League club in a difficult time in its history.

As per the Daily Express, Aston Villa had entered discussions at the time with Ellison over a possible sale of the West Midlands club.

At the time, Villa were owned by Randy Learner and had just been relegated from the Premier League to the Championship after spending 29 years in the English top flight.

Villa fans were keen for a new owner after growing tired of Learner's ownership, which began following a takeover which was completed in September 2006.

Ultimately, despite there being talks, Ellison's takeover of Villa never materialised.

The club was subsequently instead bought by Chinese businessman Tony Xia for £76m in June 2016, an ownership which lasted until the summer of 2019, with the Villa Park side now owned completely by NSWE, which is now known as V Sports.