"In Trumpworld, Larry Ellison gets more credit than anyone else for operating in the shadows. Over a drink earlier in Donald Trump's second term, one of the president's advisers described the Oracle cofounder, chairman, and chief technology officer to me as a literal "shadow president of the United States," if not necessarily the shadow president. In the months since, Ellison, who's been trading the title of "richest man alive" with Elon Musk lately, has begun to live up to the moniker."
"Musk is almost starting over from scratch, working his way back into Trump's good graces by seeming to pretend that whole ugly breakup and half-baked ploy to form a third party never happened. Rupert Murdoch is 94 years old and ceding more control of his media empire to his son Lachlan. Peter Thiel is running around interrogating the topic of the biblical antichrist."
Larry Ellison has accumulated concentrated power by quietly leveraging Oracle's dominance in cloud applications, databases, and servers while maintaining low public visibility. Some Washington insiders characterize him as a shadow power with tremendous pull in Trump's orbit, portraying him as an 'anti-Elon' who exerts influence without overt fear tactics. Ellison alternates with Elon Musk as the world's richest person, while other billionaires like Rupert Murdoch and Peter Thiel pursue different paths. Ellison's family is building a dynasty that could match historic concentrations of economic influence, and that growing power may soon attract broader attention in Washington.
Read at WIRED
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