While it definitely isn’t surprising that Vulture would run a 10,000-word puff piece about billionaire nepo baby David Ellison using his dad’s money to take over Hollywood, you probably wouldn’t expect anything in the article to be transportation-related. Sure, in passing, it might mention a car or plane that David bought with his dad’s money, but “billionaire’s son owns expensive cars” isn’t exactly newsworthy. Dig deep enough, though, and you’ll find a fun little fact about David’s father — the Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison once had to change the name of one of his yachts because it spelled “I’m a Nazi” backward.
It’s only mentioned briefly in the Vulture article about Larry’s son David, but it’s definitely there:
Larry has plenty of other ways to spend his time and money. He recently spent $30 million on a safari park in Florida and $24 million to buy two units in the Pierre that had been owned by the Redstone family. He has owned a series of increasingly large superyachts, including a 191-foot boat he named the Izanami, after a Shinto deity, until it was pointed out that the name spelled “I’m a Nazi” backward.
Don’t you just hate it when that happens? It really is such a common problem with superyachts, I’m really surprised we don’t hear about more people running into this kind of issue.
Izanami becomes Ronin
While the Vulture article only mentions Larry Ellison unintentionally giving his superyacht an unfortunate name, this Mother Jones article from 2024 has a few more details. First of all, it’s apparently an old story, and I apologize for not paying closer attention to billionaire yacht names instead of playing Pokémon, obsessing over some girl, or whatever else I was doing all the way back in 1999. But also, instead of selling the yacht to someone who didn’t mind the Nazi association, Ellison reportedly changed the name to Ronin instead.
The Mother Jones article also links to a page from Matthew Symonds’ book, “Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle,” where we get a little more information:
LE writes: Izanami and Izanagi are the names of the two Shinto deities that gave birth to the Japanese islands, or so legend has it. When the local newspapers started pointing out that Izanami was “I’m a Nazi” spelled backward, I had the choice of explaining Shintoism to the reporters at the San Francisco Chronicle or changing the name of the boat.
It also doesn’t look like Ellison even owns the Ronin anymore, as the Vulture article says that “after upgrading to a 452-foot yacht, Larry has since downsized to one that is 288 feet long.” Which is also probably smart. Do you know how hard it is to park a 452-foot yacht?
Ultimately, it was more of an unfortunate coincidence than anything else, although Symonds also suggests that part of the reason Ellison changed the name was that he’s Jewish. And, well, you know your history. Even if it was just an unfortunate coincidence, you can probably understand why he “didn’t think [it was] quite right for its Jewish owner.”
