By Tanja May and Matthias Brügelmann
Now he gives wings to the angels in heaven.
Dietrich Mateschitz, self-made billionaire, entrepreneur, sports patron and father of the energy drink Red Bull (“… gives wings”) is dead. According to BILD information, all Red Bull employees received an email today with the sad news that her boss died at the age of 78.
BILD knows: the charismatic Austrian was ill with cancer and had lost a lot of weight in the past few months. His family and close associates knew about him, but Mateschitz didn’t want the public to know about his condition.
Now the native of Styria has lost the fight against the insidious disease.
Mateschitz was never married. He leaves behind his partner Marion Feichtner (39) and his son Mark (29) from the relationship with ex-partner Anita Gerhardter (Head of the Mateschitz Foundation “Wings for Life”). Mark Mateschitz, according to Red Bull, should follow in his father’s footsteps and had been prepared for the powerful legacy in recent years.
Dietrich “Didi” Mateschitz was by far the richest Austrian (estimated fortune as of 2021: 26.9 billion US dollars, he owned 49 percent of the Red Bull company) – and at the same time probably the most shy.
He was never part of society, public appearances were rare, he almost never gave interviews. There were only photos of him when he took part in his own sporting events: at the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Austria, at the Red Bull Ring in Styria/Spielberg or at games played by his football clubs Red Bull Salzburg and RB Leipzig.
Dietrich Mateschitz and his partner Marion Feichtner at the Austrian Grand Prix in 2019 Photo: picture alliance / ZUMAPRESS.com
He changed the world with his Red Bull cans (9.804 billion of them were sold worldwide in 2021) and his sparkling, unconventional advertising campaigns. In 1984, business graduate Mateschitz founded Red Bull GmbH with the Yoovidhya entrepreneurial family from Thailand.
Mateschitz had the recipe of the energy drink changed, invented a marketing concept, Red Bull was launched on the market in 1987 – and was soon the world market leader for energy drinks. Red Bull has long been considered by far the most valuable brand in Austria.
Mateschitz hated ties, always wore only jeans, and hated hierarchies. He owned a villa in Salzburg, a country estate in Maria Alm am Steinernen Meer, a forest estate in Styria and the private island of Laucla Island in Fiji in the South Pacific; He bought the 1,416-hectare island and luxury resort of Como in 2013 from the heirs of publisher Malcolm Forbes.
Parallel to his energy drink empire, Mateschitz built his own media empire, the Red Bull Media House (including Servus TV, Red Bull TV, Bergwelten magazine, magazines, books, Red Bull Records).
In one of his rare interviews he once said: “Money was never a driving force for me. It always came last on the list of motivating things. For me, the driving force has always been freedom and independence and joy in my projects. Joy is the basic requirement for everything you do.”