Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American centibillionaire  businessman and entrepreneur who co-founded the software company Oracle Corporation. He was Oracle's CEO from 1977 to 2014 and is now its CTO and executive chair.On September 10, 2025, Ellison was briefly the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$393 billion. Ellison is also known for his ownership of 98 percent of the land on Lanai, the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian Islands.