Billionaire rushed to change name of yacht after realizing chilling meaning behind it
Topics: Donald Trump, Money, Technology
William Morgan
Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/Anna Moneymaker
Topics: Donald Trump, Money, Technology
A billionaire tech mogul in President Trump's inner circle was forced to scrub the name off the side of his brand new yacht when he realized that it said something truly awful when read backwards.
Larry Ellison, the founder of software company Oracle, reached the mortifying realization shortly after purchasing a unique 191 foot yacht, which was designed by legendary architect Sir Norman Foster and looks more like a military cruiser than a luxury ship.
With sharp naval-inspired geometric features and a higher-than-usual top speed of 34 knots (39mph), yacht-obsessed Ellison would doubtlessly been over the moon when he acquired the vessel from a Japanese millionaire in 1999.
But that likely faded when he looked upon the German-made luxury ship, which he had named after the Shinto goddess of death and creation, Izanami.
Advert
That's because he realized, if you saw the name in a mirror or read it backwards... it spells out 'Imanazi'.
AKA, 'I'm a nazi'.
As someone who had given millions to the Israeli military and is considered a close friend of the Jewish nation's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ellison reportedly rushed to get the name removed from the vessel.
An inveterate Japanophile, Ellison chose to rename the luxury ship 'Ronin' - named after a masterless samurai.
Other ships owned by the billionaire have been named everything from Musashi to Rising Sun and the Katana.
He would later resell the military-style yacht to Venezuelan banker Victor Vargas at some time before 2013, according to the New York Post.
This embarrassing moment came to light once again recently after social media users unearthed an old story about the incident, with many pointing out that it sounds like a storyline from HBO's Succession.
Last year, 81-year-old Ellison briefly became the richest person in the world as Oracle, which specialises in providing data services to corporations and governments, benefitted from the massive AI boom.
The software billionaire has had something of a Succession moment since President Trump was elected to a second term in office, as a major donor and key ally in the tech world.
This includes government approval of the massive media merger that created Paramount Skydance, which placed his firstborn, David Ellison, in charge of the company which now has a market cap of around $13.3 billion.
Further backing from Trump came when he put Ellison's bid in the lead to takeover the US operations of social media giant TikTok, which could make Ellison into another Rupert Murdoch in terms of media influence.
Others on social media thought the embarrasing 'Im a Nazi' situation sounded more farcical, with one pointing out: “This sounds like something out of Arrested Development.”