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By BERNARD CONDON, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrested the title of the world’s richest man from longtime holder Elon Musk early Wednesday, according to wealth tracker Bloomberg, as stock in his software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading.

A college dropout, the 81-year-old Ellison is now worth $393 billion, Bloomberg says, several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest for four years running. Stock in one of Musk’s biggest holdings, Tesla, has been moving in the opposite direction of Oracle’s, dropping 14% so far this year as of Tuesday.

The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle powered by multibillion dollar orders from customers as the AI race heats up.

Another news organization with a long history of tallying the world’s richest, Forbes, still has Musk at the top, at $439 billion. Bloomberg put his net worth at $385 billion. The difference is in how the two estimate the value of Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, among other private holdings. read more

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, maker of weight-loss drug Wegovy, said Wednesday it would cut 9,000 jobs, 5,000 of them in Denmark, in order to strengthen the company’s focus on growth opportunities in obesity and diabetes medications.

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The restructuring, which would eliminate 11% of the company’s workforce, aimed to reduce organizational complexity and speed up decision-making as the company faces a more competitive market for obesity drugs.

The streamlining would save 8 billion Danish krone ($1.25 billion) by the end of 2026, savings that are to be redirected to diabetes and obesity, including research and development, the company said. Novo Nordisk also makes Ozempic, a diabetes drug that also can result in weight loss. read more

By Nazmul Ahasan, Bloomberg News

Hiring in the U.S. health care sector is looking increasingly shaky, raising a warning flag for the economy given its importance as a key driver of job growth over the last three years.

Health care and social assistance companies added about 47,000 employees to payrolls in August, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report published Friday. While it remained the largest contributor to job growth in the month, it also marked the sector’s marking the smallest increase since January 2022.

The report also showed excluding health care, the U.S. economy has shed more than 140,000 jobs over the last four months, a rare development which underscores the critical role health care employers are playing in supporting the broader labor market.

“Health care has been recovering from a slowdown during the pandemic and was growing faster than its pre-pandemic trend, so the catch-up has been an important part of that story,” said Neale Mahoney, a Stanford University economics professor who studies health care. “It’s still propping up the economy, but it won’t go on forever.” read more

By ISABELLA O’MALLEY, Associated Press

Fifty-five heat waves over the past quarter-century would not have happened without human-caused climate change, according to a study published Wednesday.

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Planet-warming emissions from 180 major cement, oil and gas producers contributed significantly to all of the heat events considered in the study, which was published in the journal Nature and examined a set of 213 heat waves from 2000 to 2023. The polluters examined in the study include publicly traded and state-owned companies, as well several countries where fossil fuel production data was available at the national level. read more

By Summer Ballentine, The Detroit News

Electric vehicles in the United States produce fewer greenhouse gases than gas automobiles, even when factoring in battery-making emissions, limited range during bad weather and coal-fired power grids, according to a new analysis.

The University of Michigan study, published in an American Chemical Society journal, compared projected lifetime emissions of battery, hybrid and gas-powered vehicles from the 2025 model year. On average, gas-powered vehicles will produce 70% more greenhouse gases than EVs with 300-mile charging ranges.

The data include emissions from battery and auto production, a roughly 200,000-mile vehicle lifespan and final recycling or other disposal of the vehicle. Data show EVs create less pollution than plug-in hybrids and other hybrids; plug-in hybrids are more environmentally friendly than other hybrids; hybrids create less pollution than gas-powered vehicles; and smaller vehicles of any powertrain are less emission-intensive than SUVs and pickups. read more