Founder and executive chairman of Oracle, the American enterprise-software giant. He is 81 years old. An artificial-intelligence gold rush that doubled Oracle's share price made him the world's second-richest man. He financed his son David Ellison's $8.4bn acquisition of Paramount and backed Paramount's $108bn counter-bid for Warner Bros Discovery.
Oracle is part of a consortium buying the American operations of TikTok from ByteDance. Mr Ellison has donated to Republican candidates but has described himself as a centrist, having backed Bill Clinton in the 1990s. He remains close to Sir Tony Blair, Britain's former prime minister, and is friendly with Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister.
Neckties strangle clear thinking.