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 in December 2025 backed Paramount's $108bn counter-bid for Warner Bros Discovery.
Oracle is part of a consortium buying the American operations of TikTok from ByteDance. 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.
I will follow the good side right to the fire, but not into it if I can help it.