He was one of the founders of SAP SE in 1972 with other former IBM employees Hans Werner Hector, Klaus Tschira, Claus Wellenreuther and Hasso Plattner and owner of Bundesliga football club TSG 1899 Hoffenheim.

[2] His father, Emil Hopp, was a Truppführer of the Nazi Party paramilitary organization Sturmabteilung, and led as a commanding officer the destruction of a synagogue in Hoffenheim during the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938.

He continues investing into various minor companies and his Dietmar-Hopp-Stiftung, a philanthropic foundation, has spent hundreds of millions of Euros for medicine, education and other charity in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region.

After suffering a devastating loss in 1990, Hopp decided to invest money into his former club, which was playing in the lowest tiers of the German football league system (Kreisliga) at that time.

Hopp spent large amounts of money on new players and coach Ralf Rangnick and Hoffenheim managed two consecutive promotions and eventually entered the Bundesliga in 2008, which it has played in since then.