Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz is dead. The native of Styria, who built a global company around the energy drink, died on Saturday at the age of 78 after a short, serious illness. The company announced this shortly before midnight.
Mateschitz was considered the richest Austrian and not least made a name for himself with his sponsoring activities in the sports sector.
“Continue life’s work in his spirit”
“In these moments, grief covers all other feelings. But soon the grief will make way for gratitude, for what he changed, moved, caused and made possible for so many people,” wrote Red Bull in a message that was initially sent to all employees went. “It is the task and responsibility of all of us to continue his life’s work in his spirit.”
Dietrich Mateschitz was born on May 20, 1944 in Sankt Marein im Mürztal. After studying business administration at the Vienna University of Applied Sciences, now the University of Economics and Business, he initially worked for Jacobs Kaffee and Blendax.
During a business trip, he became aware of the Asian energy drink “Krating Daeng”, or “Red Bull” in English, acquired the license rights and founded the company together with the Thai manufacturing family Yoovidhya in the mid-1980s.
As a result, Red Bull drove an extremely offensive marketing strategy, which increasingly included sponsorship in the sports sector. At first it was more about extreme sports, but gradually the popular sport came into focus – from the Red Bull Salzburg football club to ice hockey teams and their own Formula 1 teams.
Net worth of $27.4 billion
As a co-founder of the “Wings for Life” foundation, Mateschitz was committed to research into healing paraplegia, and the public-shy billionaire was also involved in the media sector – for example with the television station ServusTV.
The US magazine “Forbes” listed him in 2022 with a fortune of 27.4 billion dollars in 51st place in the global billionaire ranking.
Source: Nachrichten
