The famous Dietrich Mateschitz was an Austrian billionaire businessman. He was the co-founder and 49% owner of Red Bull GmbH.
As of October 2021, Mateschitz’s net worth was estimated at US$25.4 billion. Mateschitz worked in marketing for Unilever and Blendax.
Dietrich Mateschitz dies: Cause of death revealed
Mateschitz was born on 20 May 1944, in Sankt Marein im Mürztal, Styria, Nazi Germany (now in Austria), to a family of Croatian ancestry; some sources state that he had relatives in the Zadar area of Croatia.
His mother’s side was from Styria, and his father’s side was from Maribor (now in Slovenia) both his parents were school teachers.
He attended the Hochschule für Welthandel (now Vienna University of Economics and Business), where after ten years, he graduated with a marketing degree in 1972. He was so keen and passionate about extreme sports at an early age.
Mateschitz’s first employer was Unilever, where he worked marketing detergents. He subsequently moved to Blendax, the German cosmetics company (since bought by Procter & Gamble), where he worked on, among other things, the marketing of Blendax toothpaste.
It was as part of his travels for Blendax that he discovered Krating Daeng, the drink that would later become Red Bull. In 1984, he founded Red Bull GmbH with Chaleo Yoovidhya, launching the brand in Austria in 1987.
Subsequently, he turned Red Bull drink into a world market leader among energy drinks. It was revealed that he worked on the formula for around three years before the modified drink was launched under the new name Red Bull in 1987.
Mateschitz never married but had a son named Mark who was born in the early 1990s. As of the time of Mateschitz’s death, his son was the managing director of one of his investment companies.
Mateschitz rarely gave interviews and refused to answer questions about his son.
He remained a reclusive figure maintaining a low profile despite his heavy involvement with Formula One.
He was also known for his simplicity often seen wearing casual dress wear preferably in jeans and sunglasses. Mateschitz was in a relationship for two years with the mother of his son, and later had a long-term partner named Marion Feichtner.
He was known as a recluse, stating “I don’t believe in 50 friends. I believe in a smaller number. Nor do I care about societal events. It’s the most senseless use of time. When I do go out, from time to time, it’s just to convince myself again that I’m not missing a lot.
He held a pilot’s license and enjoyed flying a Falcon 900 and a Piper Super Cub. He had his hangar with a collection of old planes, including the last Douglas DC-6B to be produced, which once belonged to Yugoslav Marshal Josip Broz Tito.
He died following a long period of illness on 22 October 2022, at the age of 78.
Mateschitz and his Bundesliga club RB Leipzig faced backlash in 2017 over comments made in a Kleine Zeitung interview in which he suggested that Austria should close its borders to refugees and expressed support for Donald Trump and other populist positions. He went on to strongly criticize both the Government of Germany and the Government of Austria for their policies during the 2015 European migrant crisis.
Mateschitz lived in Fuschl am See, Austria but also owned the island of Laucala in Fiji, which he bought from the Forbes family for £7 million. He spent millions on acquiring and conserving houses and castles in the Austrian Alps, saying “I want to enjoy these places myself, but I also want to take care of them.
