Obituaries

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Dietrich Mateschitz Croatian: Matešić[2] (20 May 1944 – 22 October 2022[3]) was an Austrian billionaire businessman. He was the co-founder and 49% owner of Red Bull GmbH.[4] As of October 2021, Mateschitz's net worth was estimated at US$25.4 billion.[5]
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Mateschitz was born 20 May 1944, in Sankt Marein im Mürztal, Styria, Austria to a family of Croatian ancestry. Some sources state that he has relatives in the Zadar area of Croatia.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] His mother's side is from Styria, his fathers' side is from Maribor.[13][14] His parents were both primary school teachers and separated when he was a young child.[citation needed]

After taking ten years to graduate from the Hochschule für Welthandel (now Vienna University of Economics and Business) with a marketing degree in 1972,[13][15] 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.[16] It was as part of his travels for Blendax that he discovered Krating Daeng, the drink that would later become Red Bull.[13] In 1984, he founded Red Bull GmbH[17] with Chaleo Yoovidhya, launching the brand in Austria in 1987.[16] Subsequently, he turned the Red Bull drink into a world market leader among energy drinks.[18]

He was co-founder of the Wings for Life foundation that supports spinal cord research together with Heinz Kinigadner. Since 2014, the foundation has organised the Wings for Life World Run to raise funds.[19]

Mateschitz's brands are consistently marketed as associated with the physical and mental attributes needed for various types of extreme sports through commercial sponsorship.[20] Red Bull formerly owned more than 60 percent of the Sauber Formula One motor racing team, and was the team's main sponsor. However, Red Bull ended its relationship with Sauber at the end of 2001 after the team opted to sign Kimi Räikkönen as one of their drivers for the 2001 season instead of Red Bull protege Enrique Bernoldi.[21] In November 2004, Mateschitz bought the Jaguar Racing Formula One team from its previous owners, Ford, and renamed it Red Bull Racing. In September 2005, Mateschitz joined forces with his close friend and former Formula One driver, Gerhard Berger, to purchase the Italian-registered Minardi team from its Australian owner Paul Stoddart. The team was renamed Scuderia Toro Rosso, Toro Rosso meaning Red Bull in Italian. Toro Rosso was meant to serve as a Junior team to Red Bull Racing. Ironically in 2008, Sebastian Vettel won the Italian GP for Toro Rosso. In 2009, he would win Red Bull Racing’s first race in F1. In 2010, Red Bull Racing won the Formula One World Constructors' Championship and Drivers' Championship with Sebastian Vettel. They then went on to win both titles for the next three years running in 2011, 2012, and 2013, making Vettel and Red Bull Racing four-time world champions. 8 years later they won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship again with Max Verstappen in the 2021 season and came as runners up in the Formula One World Constructors' Championship which was won by Mercedes.

From 2006 to 2011, Mateschitz also owned Team Red Bull who competed in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and the K&N Pro Series East.
In late 2004, he bought the A1-Ring racing circuit, which had formerly hosted the Formula One Austrian Grand Prix, and renamed it the Red Bull Ring. The circuit re-opened in May 2011 and hosted a round of the 2011 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season. Although Mateschitz had stated that there were no plans for it to return to the Formula One calendar, in December 2012 Red Bull notified the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile they would be open to hosting a Grand Prix.[22] In July 2013, Red Bull announced the return of the Austrian Grand Prix to the Formula One World Championship in 2014. The race took place on 22 June 2014 and was won by Nico Rosberg, driving for Mercedes.[23]
Mateschitz had his own hangar with a collection of old planes, including the last Douglas DC-6B to be produced, and which once belonged to Yugoslav Marshal Josip Broz Tito.[24] He also sponsored the World Stunt Awards, an annual fundraiser to benefit his Taurus Foundation, which helps injured stunt professionals.

In April 2005, he bought the Austrian football club SV Austria Salzburg and in March 2006, he bought the American club MetroStars; both clubs were subsequently renamed after his famous drink, as Red Bull Salzburg and New York Red Bulls, respectively. In 2007, Red Bull founded Red Bull Brasil, a football team based in Campinas, Brazil. The team was promoted to the 1st division of the São Paulo championship in 2014, the most competitive state championship of the country.[citation needed] In 2008, Red Bull founded Red Bull Ghana. In May 2009, he initiated a German football club called RB Leipzig after he bought the playing license of SSV Markranstädt. Since 2012, he was also the owner of the German ice hockey club EHC München, which also changed its name into Red Bull München.
Mateschitz also owned Seitenblicke, Austria's top society magazine, but avoided the celebrity circuit and watched most Formula One races on TV despite owning two teams.[25]

Mateschitz never married, but had a son.[25] He held a pilot's licence and enjoyed flying a Falcon 900 and a Piper Super Cub.[25]
He lived in Fuschl am See, Austria but also owned Laucala Island, off Fiji, which he bought from the Forbes family for £7 million.[25]
Mateschitz and his Bundesliga club RB Leipzig faced backlash in 2017 over comments made in a Kleine Zeitung interview[26] in which he suggested that Austria should close its borders to refugees and expressed support for Donald Trump and other populist positions.[27]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Mateschitz

Any American who admires Donald Quisling Trump is suspect. 

Any non-American who admires Donald Quisling Trump is even more suspect.