HANOVER, Germany — Dietrich Mateschitz, the Austrian man who turned a caffeinated Thai energy drink into the multibillion-dollar Red Bull empire, died on Saturday. He was 78.
His company, Red Bull, announced the death to employees in an email. The cause was cancer, according to German and Austrian news reports. Red Bull did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the 1980s, Mr. Mateschitz, then a salesman for a company that made personal hygiene products and toothpaste, discovered the elixirs sold in Asian pharmacies as pick-me-ups for workers and truckers. He got in touch with the maker of one of them, Chaleo Yoovidhya, whose drink, Krathing Daeng, translates into English as “red bull.”
The two formed a partnership and, after three years of tinkering with the Thai recipe, Mr. Mateschitz introduced the westernized version of the energy drink to his native Austria in 1987.
Dietrich Mateschitz, Creator of the Red Bull Empire, Dies at 78
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