A lec Gores is an Israeli-American billionaire businessman and the founder of The Gores Group, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm. Born in Nazareth, Israel, to a Greek father and Lebanese mother, he immigrated to the United States as a teenager. After earning a degree in computer science, he founded a computer hardware and software distribution company, which he later sold, providing the initial capital for his move into private equity.

He founded The Gores Group in 1987, pioneering an operational approach to private equity. His firm specializes in acquiring and turning around underperforming or non-core divisions of large corporations, particularly in the technology, industrial, and healthcare sectors. In recent years, Gores has become one of the most prolific and successful sponsors of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), launching numerous blank-check companies that have taken prominent businesses like Luminar Technologies and United Wholesale Mortgage public. His brother, Tom Gores, is also a billionaire private equity investor and the owner of the Detroit Pistons NBA team.