T im Sweeney is an American video game programmer and the founder and CEO of Epic Games, the company behind the global gaming phenomenon "Fortnite" and the widely used Unreal Engine software. A self-taught programmer, he founded the company in 1991 from his parents' basement. Epic's first major success was the Unreal Engine, a powerful and versatile game engine that the company both uses for its own games and licenses to other game developers, which has become a major and highly profitable business.

While the Unreal Engine was a huge success, it was the 2017 launch of "Fortnite," particularly its free-to-play "Battle Royale" mode, that transformed Epic Games into a cultural and financial juggernaut. The game attracted hundreds of millions of players worldwide and generated billions of dollars in revenue from in-game purchases. This success has made Sweeney, who remains the controlling shareholder of the privately held company, a multi-billionaire. He has since become a vocal and powerful critic of the business practices of Apple and Google, launching a high-profile antitrust lawsuit against them over their app store policies.