Category: Business

• Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel told CNBC that he values flexibility from his employees.
• Career experts agree that this quality is important as CEOs are always looking for innovation.
• Being open to new ideas also can apply to leadership, a career coach told BI.

Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel told CNBC Make it that his least favorite employee in the workplace is the know-it-all.

"Somebody who thinks they know the answer to absolutely everything," Buechel told the outlet. "Somebody who thinks that it has to be exactly like this because this has always happened before. It's always going to happen this way."

The CEO of Amazon's grocery chain said that being open to other people's ideas is crucial for career growth.

However, he admitted in the interview that he faced a similar pitfall.

"I sometimes could have been that person in my past, on certain things," Buechel said. "And I learned the hard way that you have to be flexible, especially in today's world. Our customers' demands are changing all the time, things are always changing the business."

Career experts agree that being open to new ideas and flexibility is important for employees — and that virtue also should be applied to leadership.

"It's equally critical for leadership to be open to new ways of doing things and to support their teams in implementing innovative solutions, and it's not just about employees who don't want change," Prerika Agarwal, founder and CEO of Inspiration Careers, told Business Insider in an email, adding that she often encounters employees frustrated by leadership that is resistant to new ideas.

Katherine Kirkinis, a career coach for Wanderlust Careers, told BI that being knowledgable isn't an inherent flaw and the underlying issue is not being open to other people's ideas because of it.

"You may be incredibly intelligent and well versed in your field, but that doesn't mean you can't learn something new from anyone (even someone who is much younger or in a lower-ranked position)," she wrote. "The smartest people know this and are always listening, curious, and trying to learn something new from absolutely everyone they encounter."

Kirkinis added that flexibility is also a key trait since a CEO or a company would want innovation.

"If you figured out one way to do something and it works, fabulous," she wrote. "Perhaps there is a way to improve on that, or make it more efficient. Curiosity and innovation are key — if you are working with someone who does their job and never innovates, that can be satisfactory, but you can make yourself irreplaceable to a company or team if you innovate and take initiative."

• Elon Musk says former President Donald Trump sometimes calls him up out of the blue.
• The Tesla CEO made the comments during Tesla's annual shareholder meeting on Thursday.
• The apparent Musk-Trump phone calls are in line with a burgeoning chumminess between the two men.

Elon Musk may be influencing Donald Trump's stance on electric vehicles during random phone calls between the Tesla CEO and former president.

Musk suggested as much during Tesla's annual shareholder meeting on Thursday after investors voted to reinstate his multibillion-dollar pay package.

During a question-and-answer segment of the meeting, Musk was asked about the 2024 Republican presumptive nominee.

"Donald Trump has been a big critic of electric vehicles, but last week, he surprised us by saying he's a big fan of Tesla and a big fan of you," the man said, garnering applause. "What did you tell him?"

Trump has long railed against electric vehicles, painting the vehicles as inefficient and harmful to American autoworkers. Trump previously vowed to undo President Joe Biden's EV policies and warned of an economic "bloodbath" should the likely inevitable transition to electric vehicles continue.

But in a confusing turn of events, Trump seemed to switch his tune at an Arizona rally earlier this month, telling the crowds that he is a "big fan of electric cars."

"I'm a fan of Elon," Trump said, according to a Tesla trade media outlet. "I like Elon, I like him, and I think a lot of people are going to want to buy an electric car."

Trump's apparent about-face could be due to his growing chumminess with Musk — a relationship the billionaire tech leader seemed to confirm on Thursday.

"I can be persuasive," Musk said in response. "I have had some conversations with him, and he does call me out of the blue for no reason. I don't know why, but he does."

Musk said the former president is "very nice" when he calls. The Tesla CEO added that he's tried to sell Trump on the climate benefits of electric vehicles, as well as the patriotic perks.

"America is the leader in electric cars," Musk said Thursday.

Trump's changing tune on Tesla may also have something to do with the influence of his friends, Musk said.

"I think a lot of his friends now have Teslas," Musk said. "They all love it. And he's a huge fan of the Cybertruck."

Both men have publicly aligned themselves with the other in recent weeks: Musk defended Trump hours after he was convicted on 34 felony counts, calling the matter "trivial." Trump, meanwhile, has discussed offering Musk an advisory role in his administration should he win in November, The Wall Street Journal reported last month. The outlet also reported that Musk and Trump had breakfast together in March with their sons, X and Barron Trump, and billionaire Nelson Peltz, during which they criticized Biden.

A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• More and more foreigners are interested in owning property in Bali.
• Nathan Ryan, a real-estate agent in Bali, shares three things people should know before building a house there.
• Try renting for six months or a year before making any purchases, he said.

Bali has long been a popular vacation destination known for its beautiful beaches, lush rainforests, and rich culture.

In recent years, the Indonesian island has become especially popular with digital nomads and those looking to escape city life. More and more foreigners are interested in owning property in Bali, either for investment purposes or to call home.

Data from Indonesian-based real-estate platform Rumah123 showed that demand for properties by foreign citizens in Bali's Badung Regency has increased by 92.1% compared to 2022, per the daily business paper Bisnis Indonesia. The Bandung Regency includes tourist spots like Seminyak, Canggu, and Uluwatu.

"Growth of foreigners' demand in properties in 2023 has seen rapid development compared to 2022. The potential for the foreign market is expected to further accelerate growth and advancement of this industry in 2024," Marisa Jaya, head of research at Rumah123, told the outlet.

Business Insider spoke to Nathan Ryan, a real-estate agent, about three things people should know before building a house in Bali. Ryan cofounded Bali Realty with his wife in 2009. He has spent the past 15 years working in the island's real estate market.

1. Prepare for chaotic paperwork — and ask for lots of documentation

Prepare for some level of paperwork chaos in Bali. Information is not always documented properly and can cause a headache for foreign buyers, Ryan said.

Since foreigners can't own land titles in Bali, those who want to buy land in Bali typically do so on a leasehold basis. These leases range from 25 to 30 years, and they can be renewed.

When buying a leasehold property, buyers should engage a notary or lawyer to check that the land title is clear, current, and real, Ryan told BI.

The buyer should ask the seller for documents detailing the history of the land all the way back to the original landowner.

"You might be the third or fourth buyer, and if someone hadn't previously paid the taxes, the government could come after you for those taxes," Ryan continued.

2. Make sure the street leading to your plot has a name

When looking for leasehold property in Bali, make sure there's a public road leading to it.

"There have been times when property has been locked in, because it might look like there's a road there to the land you're looking at. However, that road could be on land that belongs to someone else," Ryan said.

If the street doesn't have a name, you might be in for trouble. There have been cases of properties being built on land without registered roads or laneway access.

"There could be a road there when you went and looked at the land," he continued. "But if you look it up on Google, it won't have a name, which means that someone owns it."

3. You might not want to live in the same place you vacation

"If you can get a yearly rental, test an area first before you commit to buying," Ryan said. "Just because you've holidayed in Seminyak might not mean that you want to live in Seminyak."

Being close to popular places in Bali, like Canggu, can mean getting caught in traffic, especially during rush hour, which is something to consider when picking a spot to build a home.

"Traffic's a headache, and you have to plan your day around it," he added. "It's like in any big city, where you have to plan what you're doing and work your day out."

• Tesla won investor approval for Elon Musk's compensation, but it won't be reinstated just yet.
• Musk's pay plan, initially approved in 2018, was voided by a Delaware judge in January.
• Now, Tesla must take the issue back to the judge.

Tesla announced during its annual meeting on Thursday that it had won approval for Elon Musk's pay package after weeks of campaigning.

Musk was quick to celebrate the win: "Hot damn! I love you guys," he said.

At the event, Musk took to the stage to do a victory dance but the company has only won its first battle.

Despite investor approval, Musk won't get his pay package back just yet. The next step: Tesla must take the issue back to court.

Musk's pay plan was initially approved in 2018 but was struck down by a Delaware judge in January after a Tesla shareholder filed a lawsuit alleging the agreement was "beyond the bounds of reasonable judgment."

Tesla has yet to reveal how many investors voted in favor of the proposal. The company also passed a proposal to move its state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas on Thursday, but that vote to move won't allow Tesla to sidestep the ruling quite yet. It will still be up to the Delaware courts to decide whether the pay plan can be reinstated.

"The lawsuit in Delaware will continue," Ann Lipton, a business law professor at Tulane University Law School, told Business Insider. "The new vote was conducted while Tesla was still a Delaware company and is subject to Delaware law — a point that Tesla made in its SEC filings. So, it's now up to the Delaware courts to determine if the new vote actually does have a ratifying effect."

Last month, Tesla reassured Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it would not attempt to contest the ruling on Musk's pay elsewhere, for example, in a Texas court.

Lipton added that regardless of how the judge decides to weigh the recent vote, the losing side will likely appeal, dragging the case on further.

Dorothy Lund, a corporate law professor at Columbia University, told BI it could take months for the issue to be resolved, as Tesla must first wait for McCormick to determine the legal fees in the case. But she thinks it's likely Tesla will appeal the ruling, taking the case to the Delaware Supreme Court.

"Tesla hasn't officially decided to appeal but all signs are pointing to that," Lund said. "They have a ways to go before Elon will be paid," she added.

The case is also likely to spawn additional lawsuits, according to Anat Alon-Beck, a corporate law expert at Case Western Reserve University. Musk has been known to draw a fair share of lawsuits. On Thursday, a group of Tesla shareholders filed a separate lawsuit alleging Musk had been siphoning AI talent to his other company, xAI, instead of Tesla, which has its own AI initiatives.

In January, Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick ruled to void the pay plan because she said Musk had undue influence over the agreement because of his close relationships with board members.

When the compensation package was voided, it was estimated to be worth around $55 billion — making it the largest pay package ever to be awarded to a CEO.

While Musk does not receive a salary at Tesla, his compensation is determined by Tesla's performance. It's structured around 12 tranches of stock options that are vested when Tesla hits specific targets over the course of 10 years. When the company passes each milestone, Musk receives stock equal to 1% of outstanding shares at the time of the grant. Tesla said it hit all 12 targets as of 2023.

Do you work for Tesla or have a tip? Reach out to the reporter via a non-work email and device at gkay@businessinsider.com or 248-894-6012

• Rob McElhenney said he admires how his "Always Sunny" costar Danny DeVito has raised his kids.
• McElhenney said he learned that the key is to show up for his kids and be there for them. 
• McElhenney shares two sons with his wife and costar Kaitlin Olson.

Being a parent is hard. And parenting amid the nepo-baby discourse as two famous actors poses its own unique set of challenges.

Thankfully for Rob McElhenney and his wife and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" costar Kaitlin Olson, who share two children, they have good role models in Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman.

"Having Danny DeVito and Rhea in our lives, who have raised three wonderful kids, has been really helpful," McElhenney said in Business Insider's latest digital cover story.

"Really, the trick is not much of a trick at all," McElhenney explained of DeVito's advice. "It's just, show up, be there for them, make sure that they know that they're the most important thing in your lives, which they are."

DeVito and Perlman know a thing or two about raising kids in the public eye.

Their eldest child, daughter Lucy DeVito, 41, is an actor who's appeared on "Always Sunny" and did voice work alongside her famous father for the 2022 animated show "Little Demon."

DeVito and Perlman also share another daughter named Gracie DeVito, 39, and a son named Jacob DeVito, 36.

Lucy and Jacob executive produced "Little Demon." Gracie isn't an actor, but is in a similar creative field as a painter and performance artist.

McElhenney and Olson met when Olson was cast as Sweet Dee on McElhenney's FX series. In Business Insider's cover story, Olson said watching McElhenney work on the show was "definitely when I started to fall in love with him."

The two have been married since 2008 and have two children together: sons Axel Lee (born in September 2010) and Leo Grey (born in April 2012).

While both kids have made appearances on "Always Sunny," McElhenney isn't worried about his sons becoming stereotypical nepo babies or running into the dangers of stardom.

"We've been very fortunate because we have a lot of people in our lives who were either raised by people of great affluence or celebrity or people who raised kids in that scenario who turned out great," he said. What it boils down to, he added, is that the parents are present.

"If your parents are around, they show up, they give you unconditional love with boundaries and respect you and spend time with you, you're probably going to be OK."

• Season four of Prime Video's superhero satire series "The Boys" premiered on Thursday.
• The episodes released so far include subtle references to past seasons and nods to the comic books.
• It also contains callbacks to the spin-off series "Gen V."

Warning: Major spoilers ahead for season four of Prime Video's "The Boys."

"The Boys" has returned for another gory, bloody, jaw-dropping season.

Season four, which debuted with three episodes on Thursday, is stuffed with Easter eggs, nods to the comics, and references to the college-set spin-off series "Gen V."

Here are all the details you might have missed so far.

The Boys operate out of a white van that says Mr. Marathon Catering when they attempt to crash an election night party in the season four premiere.

This is likely a nod to the supe Mister Marathon.

In the comics, he was a member of The Seven who was replaced by A-Train. The character has also previously been mentioned in passing during season two, first by Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) in episode five and then by Lamplighter (Shawn Ashmore) in episode seven.

Homelander tells his son Ryan that humans are merely "toys for our amusement."

At the election night party, Homelander (Antony Starr) tells Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) not to be scared or intimidated by humans because "they're only humans and toys for our amusement."

Later in the episode, Homelander again speaks demeaningly of humans when he tells Sister Sage (Susan Heyward), "Humans are nothing. They're less than nothing. They're just toys for my amusement, and yet, they control everything. It's unnatural."

Homelander likening humans to toys comes from the comics.

In volume nine ("The Big Ride"), Homelander talks to himself in the mirror and says, "People are toys. They're toys and they're there for my amusement. And there's not a thing more to them than that."

Homelander initiates applause for Victoria at the party and says, "Girls get it done… in the White House."

This is a callback to season two, in which Annie January/Starlight (Erin Moriarty), Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), and new Seven member Stormfront (Aya Cash) were grouped together for a female-power-style press campaign called "Girls Get it Done."

Ashley Barrett references the chaotic events of the season one finale of "The Boys" spin-off "Gen V."

During a meeting, Ashley tells Homelander, "After that debacle at Goldolkin — thank you again for saving my life — the board felt we should find new candidates for The Seven ASAP."

This is a direct reference to what happened during the season one finale of "Gen V," which takes place at a college for young supes called Godolkin University.

During the episode, students who were being tortured and experimented on in an underground lab called The Woods were freed and unleashed havoc on campus. As the young supes went wild, Ashley called in Homelander to get the situation under control.

Some of the names of the supes in consideration to join The Seven are pulled from the comics.

Ashley presents Homelander and The Seven with a list of 25 supes to choose from to fill the team's vacant seats, including Talon, Hyperion, Dogknott, and Wrangler. Talon and Dogknott are both characters that appear in the comics.

Butcher secretly meets Victoria at an abandoned Vought Video store next door to a Church of the Collective building.

The Church of the Collective, run by Alastair Adana (Goran Visnjic), was a big part of season two. After being ousted from The Seven, The Deep joined the church in an attempt to make amends and earn his way back into the supe group.

The video store contains a cutout poster for the supe Polarity's movie "Static Heat 3."

This is another nod to "Gen V."

On the show, Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas) is a supe with the ability to manipulate magnetic fields and magnetism. He's also a Godolkin University trustee and the father of a student named Andre Anderson (Chance Perdomo).

Butcher references the supe-killing virus he discovered during season one of "Gen V."

Season four of "The Boys" takes place after the events of season one of "Gen V." The end-credits scene of the finale, which shows Butcher investigating The Woods, confirms that he's the person Grace Mallory (Laila Robins) was speaking to earlier in the season about a virus that can wipe out supes.

Hughie Campbell's flash drive of incriminating files on Victoria is attached to a Billy Joel keychain.

Billy Joel is one of Hughie's (Jack Quaid) favorite musicians; throughout the show, he references his love for the singer.

During season two, Hughie explains that he's fond of Joel because he and his mom, who left him when he was 6 years old, used to have dance parties to his music.

Ambrosius' tank contains a small figurine of The Deep steering a ship wheel.

Ambrosius (voiced by Tilda Swinton) is an octopus that The Deep met at Herogasm last season and had sexual relations with.

Season four reveals that The Deep, who's now divorced, has been secretly stashing Ambrosius in a tank in his bedroom closet. When he's not around to keep her company, the sea creature stays occupied with a small toy of The Deep that she can wrap her tentacles around.

Sister Sage's real name is Jessica Bradley.

Sister Sage is from Detroit, and her power is that she's the smartest person on the planet.

Homelander recruits her for The Seven because he's tired of being surrounded by people who are so terrified of him that they agree with everything he says and don't challenge him. Homelander also reaches out to her because he's been thinking about his legacy and wants her help in figuring out how to create the ideal world to leave behind for his son Ryan.

In the comics, Jessica Bradley is a personal assistant to Vought-American CEO James Stillwell.

Hughie's desktop wallpaper at The Boys headquarters is a selfie of him and Annie.

After overcoming to difficulties last season, Hughie and Annie are finally in a solid place in their relationship.

Koy, the Vought stunt coordinator who choreographs Ryan's first staged save, is the show's real-life supervising stunt coordinator John Koyama.

Later in episode two, when they execute the fake civilian rescue, Ryan accidentally throws Koy too hard, sending him flying into a building to his death.

"Gen V" characters Sam Riordan and Cate Dunlap's appearances in season four are subtly teased in the news crawl early in episode three.

As the channel NNC covers Annie rallying Starlighters and declaring she's back, a news crawl reads: "Guardians of Godolkin Sam and Cate to join Seven members at V52 Expo."

The season four trailer for "The Boys" includes a quick shot of Sam (Asa Germann) and Cate (Maddie Phillips) from "Gen V," but it's unclear which episode fans will see them in.

• Trump says he does not hold a liquor license anywhere in the United States.
• Keeping his name off the paperwork can insulate him from laws barring felons from holding licenses.
• Trump may not be liable for liquor licenses held by tenants or under LLCs where he's not an officer.

Keeping his name off the paperwork may protect former President Donald Trump if state officials anywhere in the US try to revoke liquor licenses at Trump-branded properties due to his new felony status, experts told Business Insider.

New Jersey officials revealed this week that they are looking at the licenses at his three golf courses there.

The licenses remain current at the three golf courses, located in Colts Neck, Bedminster, and Pine Hill, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Attorney General's office said, confirming that the division of alcoholic beverage control is "reviewing" the status of the licenses.

More than a dozen bars and restaurants serve alcohol on the premises of Trump-branded or Trump-owned hotels and golf courses in New Jersey, New York, Florida, and California, a survey by Business Insider found.

These states prohibit felons or people convicted of "moral" offenses such as fraud from holding a liquor license.

But Trump "is not the holder of any liquor license in New Jersey, and he is not an officer or director of any entity that holds a liquor license in New Jersey — or anywhere in the United States for that matter," the GOP presidential frontrunner said through a spokesman.

That may keep him insulated.

Trump may not be responsible for liquor licenses held in the name of his tenants or under LLCs for which he is not on the paperwork, experts said.

If Trump's name is not connected to the license, then his conviction could be moot, said William Fay, a former New Jersey deputy attorney general who worked with the enforcement bureau of the state's division of alcoholic beverage control.

Just because Trump's name is in the title of the LLC, doesn't mean he's a member or owner, Fay said.

If he is a member of the LLC, then simply being licensed as an LLC wouldn't offer any sort of protection. If he's not a member, it could, Fay said.

But there are loopholes to this loophole

"Just because he is not on the paperwork doesn't mean he's scot-free," explained Aaron H. Pierce, a Manhattan-based attorney who specializes in alcoholic beverage-control law in New York.

Trump-branded properties in Manhattan house a half-dozen bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, including the memorabilia-crammed "45 Wine & Whiskey Bar" at Trump Tower.

Say Trump is landlord to the bar operators at one of these properties, and it's the bar operators who hold the liquor license, Pierce said.

Or say the bar is owned by an LLC for which Trump is not listed as a director or officer, he added.

If Trump is charging the bar a flat rent, his felony status won't impact that liquor license. But if he is directly profiting from liquor sales — meaning getting a cut of the bar till — then that's another story, said Pierce, partner at the business law firm Pierce & Kwok LLP.

"If he's not on the paperwork, but he's profiting directly from the sale of alcohol, then he's not off the hook," he said.

Trump would still have options, though, even if his hush-money conviction voided one or more of his liquor licenses.

In New York, Trump could ask for a certificate of relief from civil disabilities, Pierce said.

A "CRD," as it's called, would be issued by the judge at or after sentencing, and it can help someone with a conviction overcome certain licensing requirements.

If New Jersey determines that Trump's hush-money conviction disqualifies him as a licensee, as it's a crime of "moral turpitude," Trump could divest from the LLC that owns the license, said Fay, the former prosecutor at the division's enforcement bureau.

"As I understand, it involves some sort of misrepresentations, so I would assume there's some fraud in that — so theoretically, it would be a moral turpitude crime," Fay said. "Then, yeah, the next option would be to divest his interest."

"People do tend to pass it on to other LLC members. Sometimes you'll see family members," said Fay. "But I would imagine this would be under some sort of close review at the ABC to make sure it's above board."

Trump could also have his lawyers make the case at a hearing before an administrative judge that his conviction does not qualify for license-revocation, Fay said.

Challenging the revocation could take months or years, during which the license would stay in place, Fay said.

"I don't imagine that will happen here," Fay said of a potential hearing. "There may be conversations that occur proactively, whether it's the golf courses or Trump himself, to take action to absolve himself of a potential issue."

• Donald Trump reportedly called Milwaukee a "horrible city."
• The former president is set to be formally crowned the GOP's presidential nominee there in July.
• Republicans offered a variety of explanations for Trump's reported remark.

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday reportedly insulted Milwaukee, the site of the Republican National Convention in just a few weeks.

"Milwaukee, where we are having our convention, is a horrible city," Trump told House Republicans during their closed-door meeting, according to PunchBowl News.

The strangest part wasn't even Trump's reported insult for the city whose name is a translation of "The Good Land," as Alice Cooper once helpfully taught us. Rather, it was the apparently contradictory ways that Republicans tried to either deny or clarify Trump's remark.

"I was in the room. President Trump did not say this," Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, wrote on X, quoting PunchBowl reporter Jake Sherman's initial tweet. "There is no better place than Wisconsin in July."

Steil later told a local TV station that Trump "wasn't talking about the city, he was talking about specific issues in the city."

"We were having broad conversation about the challenges we face in as a country, in particular the challenges we've seen in Milwaukee," Steil said mentioning issues with elections, crime, and public schools.

A spokesperson for Steil later told Business Insider that since no one was taking notes, it was not clear whether or not Trump said "Milwaukee" and "horrible" next to each other.

"He's not saying Milwaukee itself is horrible," the spokesperson said. "He was saying the crime and election integrity that the city is facing is what's horrible."

A convention spokesperson told a local TV station that Trump was discussing his concerns about the security perimeter for the convention, which has been the subject of GOP frustration related to whether protests can occur in a park close to the main convention arena.

Both parties have historically hosted their conventions in cities or states that may have different politics than their own. This is especially true for Republicans, who have hosted their conventions in cities like New York. Local officials are known for playing nice though in order to garner the big business and spotlight that comes with hosting one of the two major political parties as they formally nominate their presidential candidate.

Trump's reported insult quickly landed back in Wisconsin where local reporters jumped on the story. The former president's campaign disputed the report.

"Wrong. Total bullshit," spokesperson Steven Cheung wrote on X, quoting Sherman's initial tweet. "He never said it like how it's been falsely characterized as. He was talking about how terrible crime and voter fraud are."

Sherman has stood by his reporting. "Trump absolutely said it – undoubtedly," he wrote later on X. "People hear what they want. This is familiar to all who have covered Trump or Trump-adjacent stories for the last 10 or so years."

Democrats and the Biden campaign were quick to defend the largest city in a key swing state. Democrats were originally set to host their convention in Milwaukee in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to switch to a largely virtual event.

"Once he's settled in with his parole officer, I am certain he will discover that Milwaukee is a wonderful, vibrant and welcoming city full of diverse neighborhoods and a thriving business community," Rep. Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, whose district includes most of Milwaukee, wrote on X.

Biden's own account chimed in with an old photo of him celebrating the Milwaukee Buck's 2021 NBA championship at the White House.

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson took his own shot at Trump.

"Well, if Donald Trump wants to talk about things that he thinks are horrible, all of us lived through his presidency, so right back at ya, buddy."

• I'm grateful to my grandmother for raising me, but my childhood was lonely. 
• I thought I'd embrace being alone as an adult, but instead, I've filled my life with love.
• My wife and I have chosen to be child-free. We're intentional about connections with chosen family.

I´m in my 30s, but I joke that I´ve been a grandma since birth. I'm an only child, and my grandmother raised me while my parents were out of the picture. I grew up in a sleepy town built around fishermen and summer tourists. My grandmother's house was on a peninsula, a seven-mile stretch of the Atlantic on the south shore of Massachusetts.

My grandmother was my world, and I understood from a young age that I was lucky to live with her; grandparents aren't obligated to raise their child´s child, and if it weren't for her willingness to act as my guardian, I´m not sure what would have become of me.

But I still envied my peers with siblings or close cousins; I'd walk the beach with my grandma and long to join kids who were learning to surf with their parents or playing volleyball as a family, activities my aging grandmother simply couldn't keep up with.

I´ve always had poor eyesight and often became clingy and afraid without my glasses. I'd never been able to see my grandmother from the water and dreaded seeing her become a blurry speck on shore. I remember her best up close: big dark eyes, small stature, knuckles gnarled from arthritis.

I felt safer right beside her, where I could see her clearly and trust she wouldn´t simply disappear, but I knew better than to ask her to swim with me; she wore slacks and blouses to the beach for a reason. She raised six children, then me — I understood she was fragile, and that I was lucky to live with her during her golden years.

She often told me, "My body doesn't recover like yours," and encouraged me to do scary things on my own, like search for shells underwater and say hi to strangers.

I was lonely in childhood, but I still choose to be child-free

I didn't much enjoy childhood, but as a child-free adult by choice, I'm embracing the freedom being childless gives me with the support of my chosen family. Since moving from my grandmother's home more than a decade ago — first to New York, then Boston, then DC, then Atlanta, then Seattle, and now an island in the Caribbean — I´ve greeted many strangers and felt both lonely and beloved.

Since her death eight years ago, I've traveled the world like my grandmother never got to — taken solo trips to Iceland for all-night sunshine, gone to Montreal for Pride, and recently, visited the French Alps to spend time with a friend and her wife — and even saved up for corrective eye surgery, hoping Lasik would make me braver, as well as more sporty and spontaneous.

After Lasik, I did become braver — I joined strangers to go hiking, signed myself and my wife up for snowshoeing, and went camping with girls I knew from the internet. I felt less nerdy, less the shy girl hiding behind a book (though I did, and do, always carry a book with me). It's taken a return to the Atlantic, where my wife and I live for her job, to realize what I don't need is to simply see clearly, but to trust I have people looking out for me.

We fill our lives with the love of our friends

My wife and I are firm on our decision not to have children, but after moving cross-country for work repeatedly, we´ve come to love hosting people at our home to build memories.

My friend and her wife came to visit us from France, bringing with them a penchant for home cooking and tips on how to air-dry clothes. We snorkeled, swam, and spent long hours exploring the island. I fretted about nature cooperating, but my friend just reassured me they came to spend time with me — she doesn't even like the heat!

Our friends are already planning to come back and stay with us again, creating new memories and traditions. They even discussed the logistics of bringing a future child and talked about names and parenting values.

I hoped I'd have shaken the chronic loneliness of my childhood by the time I became an adult and learned to embrace being alone without feeling alone, but instead, I'm giving myself the company I always longed for.

Over the years, I've joined a queer bowling league, played bingo orchestrated by drag queens, and dragged my wife to board game nights. Growing up, I was jealous of kids who had siblings because at least they had someone as a built-in companion, but nurturing friendships in adulthood is teaching me the value of a small but earnest circle. It's not about having people beside me, as I once envied, but about people who will forge the distance, even when it's a plane ride away.

Watching my friends excitedly become parents affirms my decision not to. It could be tempting to have kids to facilitate the childhood I didn't have, filled with siblings and active parents, but parenting to heal childhood wounds feels misguided and puts the onus on a child who didn't ask to be here. I also don't trust myself to teach someone about the world when I´ve barely figured it out myself.

My younger self wouldn't believe I´m not only openly gay but married, and she especially wouldn't believe I have people looking out for me, even when they're out of sight.

• Larry Ellison, the 79-year-old cofounder of Oracle, is one of the most interesting men in tech.
• Whether yacht racing, buying Hawaiian islands, or trash-talking competitors, he keeps it lively.
• Now, he's one of the world's richest people with a net worth of about $152 billion.

Larry Ellison is the founder and chief technology officer at software company Oracle. Now, he's also the world's seventh richest man and has a net worth of $152 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The billionaire's fortunes have surged by $14 billion thanks to spiking demand for generative AI. The windfall puts him ahead of tech execs like Google cofounder Sergey Brin and former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer. 

The 79-year-old started Oracle in 1977, and decades later he's still one of the top dogs in Silicon Valley despite living in Hawaii full time — and owning an entire island. Ellison has also been a major investor in Tesla, Salesforce, and even reportedly had a seat on Apple's board of directors for a while.

Outside the office, the billionaire boasts an impressive watch collection and indulges in hobbies like yacht racing.

Here's a look at the life and career of Ellison so far.

Lawrence Joseph Ellison was born in the Bronx on August 17, 1944, the son of a single mother named Florence Spellman.

When he was 9 months old, Larry came down with pneumonia, Vanity Fair reported. His mom sent him to Chicago to live with his aunt and uncle, Lillian and Louis Ellison.

Vanity Fair reported that Louis, his adoptive father, was a Russian immigrant who took the name "Ellison" in tribute to the place in which he entered the US: Ellis Island.

Ellison is a college dropout.

Ellison went to high school in Chicago's South Side before attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. When his adoptive mother died during his second year at college, Ellison dropped out. He tried college again later at the University of Chicago but dropped out again after only one semester, Vanity Fair reported.

In 1966, a 22-year-old Ellison moved to Berkeley, California — near what would become Silicon Valley and already the place where the tech industry was taking off.

He made the trip from Chicago to California in a flashy turquoise Thunderbird that he thought would make an impression in his new life, Vanity Fair reported.

Ellison bounced around from job to job, including stints at companies like Wells Fargo and the mainframe manufacturer Amdahl. Along the way, he learned computer and programming skills.

In 1977, Ellison and partners Bob Miner and Ed Oates founded a new company, Software Development Laboratories.

The company started with $2,000 of funding.

Ellison and company were inspired by IBM computer scientist Edgar F. Codd's theories for a so-called relational database — a way for computer systems to store and access information, Britannican said. Nowadays, they're taken for granted, but in the '70s, they were a revolutionary idea.

The first version of the Oracle database was version 2 — there was no version 1.

In 1979, the company renamed itself Relational Software Inc., and in 1982, it formally became Oracle Systems Corp., after its flagship product.

In 1986, Oracle had its initial public offering, reporting revenue of $55 million.

As one of the key drivers of the growing computer industry, Oracle grew fast. The company is responsible for providing the databases in which businesses track information that is crucial to their operations.

Ellison became a billionaire at age 49. Now, he has a net worth of roughly $152 billion, according to Forbes, after racking up $50 billion in gains thanks to Oracle and Tesla stock. That makes him the seventh-richest person in the world.

Still, in 1990, Oracle had to lay off 10% of its workforce, about 400 people, because of what Ellison later described as "an incredible business mistake."

Oracle reported a loss of $36 million in September 1990 after admitting that it had miscalculated its revenue earlier that year, The New York Times reported.

It didn't get the decade off to a great start. After adjusting for that error, Oracle was said to be close to bankruptcy. At the same time, rivals like Sybase were eating away at Oracle's market share.

It took a few years, but by 1992, Ellison and Oracle managed to right the course with new employees and the popular Oracle7 database.

Ellison is known for his willingness to trash-talk competitors.

For much of the '90s, he and Oracle were locked in a public-relations battle with the competitor Informix, which went so far as to place a "Dinosaur Crossing" billboard outside Oracle's Silicon Valley offices at one point, Fortune reported in 1997.

His financial success has led to some expensive hobbies.

With Ellison as Oracle's major shareholder, his millions kept rolling in. He started to indulge in some expensive hobbies — including yacht racing. That's Ellison at the helm during a 1995 race.

He also partly financed the BMW Oracle USA sailing team, which won the America's Cup in 2010, according to Bloomberg.

Ellison was an early investor in Salesforce.

In 1999, Ellison's protégé, Marc Benioff, left Oracle to work on a new startup called Salesforce.com. Ellison was an early investor, putting $2 million into his friend's new venture.

When Benioff found out that Ellison had Oracle working on a direct competitor to Salesforce's product, he tried to force his mentor to quit Salesforce's board. Instead, Ellison forced Benioff to fire him — meaning Ellison kept his shares in Salesforce.

Given that Salesforce is now a $267 billion company, Ellison personally profits even when his competitors do well. It has led to a love-hate relationship between the two executives that continues to this day, with the two taking shots at each other in the press.

The dot-com boom of the late '90s benefited Oracle.

All of those new dot-com companies needed databases, and Oracle was there to sell them. Although investors lost out in the dot-com crash, Oracle came out of it stronger due to its acquisitions and the demand for software solutions.

With the coffers overflowing, Ellison was able to lead Oracle through a spending spree once the dot-com boom was over and prices were low.

In 2005, for example, Oracle snapped up the HR software provider PeopleSoft for $10.3 billion.

And in 2010, Oracle completed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, a server company that started at about the same time as Oracle, in 1982. That acquisition gave Oracle lots of key technology, including control over the popular MySQL database.

Ellison has also spent lavishly over the years, so much so that his accountant, Philip Simon, once asked him to "budget and plan," according to Bloomberg.

Ellison has expensive taste. Over the years he's built up an impressive collection of Richard Mille watches, an expert previously told BI. The timepieces start in the six-figure range and can go for over $1 million in some cases.

In 2009, the billionaire purchased the Indian Wells tennis tournament for a reported $100 million, The Los Angeles Times reported.

In 2010, Ellison signed the Giving Pledge.

By signing the pledge, Ellison promised to donate 95% of his fortune before he dies. And in May 2016, Ellison donated $200 million to a cancer treatment center at the University of Southern California, Forbes reported.

Starting in the 2010s, Ellison started to take more of a back seat at Oracle, handing more responsibilities to trusted lieutenants, like Mark Hurd and Safra Catz, then Oracle's copresidents.

Ellison hired Hurd, a former CEO of HP, in 2010, Inc reported. Catz has made a reputation for herself among analysts for what they describe as brilliant business strategy.

But Ellison's spending didn't slow down. In 2012, he bought 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanai.

Ellison founded a startup called Sensei in 2016 that does hydroponic farming and owns a wellness retreat on Lanai.

He also purchased Hawaiian budget airline Island Air in 2014, before selling a controlling interest in the airline two years later after it struggled financially.

In 2014, Ellison officially stepped down as Oracle CEO.

Ellison handed control over to Hurd and Catz, who became co-CEOs. Ellison now serves as the company's chairman and chief technology officer. Following Hurd's death in 2019, Catz became the sole CEO.

In 2016, Ellison scored a personal coup: the purchase of NetSuite.

Back in 1998, Ellison had made a $125 million investment in ex-Oracle exec Evan Goldberg's startup business-management software firm, NetSuite. It ended up working out well for Ellison when NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson negotiated the sale of the company to Oracle for $9.3 billion, netting Ellison a cool $3.5 billion in cash for his stake.

NetSuite investor T. Rowe Price tried to block the deal, citing Ellison's conflict of interest, but the sale closed in November 2016.

He's used his billions in a variety of ways: he invested in educational platform maker Leapfrog Enterprises and was an early investor in the ill-fated blood-testing company Theranos.

Ellison has held shares in some of the most recognizable companies, one of which was the infamous blood-testing company Theranos, founded by Elizabeth Holmes. It had a promising future until its flaws were exposed and Holmes received a prison sentence.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO back in 1997, he asked Ellison to sit on the board. Ellison served for a while, but felt that he couldn't devote the time and left in 2002, according to Forbes. Compensation for his role was an option to buy about 70,000 shares, which would've amounted to about $1 million at the time of his departure.

Ellison owns homes on the East and West coasts as part of a multibillion-dollar real-estate portfolio.

Ellison reportedly owns the Astor Beechwood Mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, and a home in Malibu. Ellison also has houses in Palm Beach, Florida and more in a multibillion-dollar real-estate portfolio.

Both of his two children work in the film industry.

His daughter, Megan, is an Oscar-nominated film producer and the founder of Annapurna Pictures. The company has produced films like "Zero Dark Thirty" and "American Hustle."

Ellison's son, David, is also in the film business. His company, Skydance Media, has produced movies like "Terminator: Dark Fate" and films in the "Mission: Impossible" franchise. Whispers of David becoming the new owner of Paramount swirled in April due to his father's net worth.

Ellison has a reputation as an international, jet-setting playboy.

Ellison has been married and divorced four times. He's most recently dated Nikita Kahn, a model and actress.

Ellison was one of the few tech leaders who had a friendly relationship with former President Donald Trump.

Ellison said publicly that he supported Trump and wants him to do well, and hosted a Trump fundraiser at his Rancho Mirage home in February, though he did not attend. The fundraiser caused an outcry among Oracle employees, who started a petition asking senior Oracle leadership to stand up to Ellison.

Catz, the CEO of Oracle, also had close ties to the Trump administration, having served on Trump's transition team. 

Ellison and Trump remained close during Trump's time in office and reportedly spoke on the phone about possible coronavirus treatments. Trump also supported Oracle's bid to buy TikTok, calling Oracle a "great company."

In December 2018, Ellison joined the board of directors at Tesla, where he's been a major investor.

Earlier in 2018, Ellison described Tesla CEO Elon Musk as a "close friend," and defended him from critics. When Musk acquired Twitter — now X — in 2022, Ellison offered to invest $1 billion.

Musk went on to help Ellison reset his forgotten password, biographer Walter Isaacson wrote.

In December 2020, Ellison revealed that he moved to Lanai full-time.

The announcement came after Oracle decided to move its headquarters to Austin, leading Oracle employees to ask Ellison if he planned to move to Texas too.

"The answer is no," Ellison wrote in a company-wide email. "I've moved to the state of Hawaii and I'll be using the power of Zoom to work from the island of Lanai."

He signed the email: "Mahalo, Larry."

He left Tesla's board in August 2022.

In a proxy filing in June 2022, the electric vehicle maker revealed that Ellison would be leaving the board. Since then, he and Musk have appeared to maintain their close relationship.

Oracle had a record-breaking 2023, and cemented itself in the new age of artificial intelligence.

Oracle's shares continued to hit records, CNBC reported. The company proved that it's not going any where any time soon.

In 2023, Oracle backed OpenAI rival Cohere.

Oracle joined other tech giants, like Salesforce, in backing the tech startup in June 2023. It began offering generative AI to its clients based on tech made by Cohere.

"Cohere and Oracle are working together to make it very, very easy for enterprise customers to train their own specialized large language models while protecting the privacy of their training data," Ellison previously said.

Oracle announced in April that it would be moving its headquarters to Nashville, Tennessee.

Despite its big move to Austin only four years ago, Ellison said that Oracle is planning to move its world headquarters to Nashville, Tennessee.

In April 2024, the exec announced that Oracle has plans for a "huge campus" in Nashville that will one day serve as the software giant's world headquarters. The company relocated from the San Francisco area to Austin, Texas in 2020.

"It's the center of the industry we're most concerned about, which is the healthcare industry," Ellison said at the Oracle Health Summit in Nashville, CNBC reported.

Matt Weinberger and Taylor Nicole Rogers contributed to an earlier version of this story.

Correction: May 7, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated Larry Ellison's role at Oracle. He's the chief technology officer, not the CEO.

Ellison's wealth jumped $14 billion after record earnings from Oracle.

Oracle's cloud applications business saw its shares spike by 13% in June 2024 after the company posted strong annual earnings due to demand for generative AI, Fortune reported. Ellison, who now serves as Oracle's CTO and owns about 40% of the company's cloud sector, got a $14 billion boost to his fortune.

The company also announced a partnership with AI startup Cohere, enabling its enterprise customers to build their own generative AI apps. "Cohere and Oracle are working together to make it very, very easy for enterprise customers to train their own specialized large language models while protecting the privacy of their training data," Ellison said during the company's earnings call.