Rank 5
Larry Ellison
153B
Oracle
Woodside, California
United States
- Ellison never finished college. He started out building databases for the CIA.
- Daughter Megan has financed films such as Zero Dark Thirty and American Hustle; son David produced mainstream movies like The Terminator and Mission: Impossible.
- Larry Ellison is chairman, chief technology officer and cofounder of software giant Oracle, of which he owns just under 40%.
- He gave up the Oracle CEO role in 2014 after 37 years at the helm.
- Oracle has grown in part through steady acquisitions of software companies: the biggest was $28.3 billion for electronic health records company Cerner in 2021.
- In 2020, Ellison moved permanently to the Hawaiian island Lanai, which he bought nearly all of in 2012 for $300 million.
- Ellison sat on Tesla's board from December 2018 to August 2022. He still owns about 15 million shares in the electric carmaker.