In 2012, Larry Ellison acquired approximately 98% of Lanai from businessman David Murdock, taking control of nearly every hotel, most of the housing, the water utility, and the vast majority of the land on an inhabited U.S. island.
The deal made him, by most measures, the private owner of a jurisdiction roughly the size of a small American city.
Ellison now effectively functions as landlord to the island's roughly 3,000 residents, and has poured additional hundreds of millions into renovating its two luxury resorts.
One man's real estate purchase directly reshapes the economy of an entire community that never got a vote in the sale.
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