Mateschitz was born on 20 May 1944, in Sankt Marein im Mürztal, Styria, Austria,[3][4] to a family of Slovene-Styrian or Croatian ancestry.

[9] He attended the Hochschule für Welthandel (now Vienna University of Economics and Business), where after ten years, he graduated with a marketing degree in 1972.

[13] It was as part of his travels for Blendax, on the way from Bangkok airport to the city centre, that Mateschitz bought a bottle of Krating Daeng, the drink that would later become Red Bull.

Sensing the commercial opportunities of this drink in Europe, Mateschitz struck a partnership deal with the Thai businessman Chaleo Yoovidhya who had already been successfully selling Krating Daeng to lorry drivers and factory workers.

[17] He also founded Media House in Austria in 2007 by providing various digital entertainment and thousands of hours of images to interested broadcasters.

[27] Red Bull recruited former Formula-2 driver Christian Horner as team principal while also bringing one of the sport's leading design engineer Adrian Newey on board as the technical director for a salary of $10m.

[28] 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.

Red Bull made a dramatic turnaround in both 2021 and 2022 seasons albeit of a reunion with Honda which put an end to an eight-year title drought that was eluded largely due to the domination of Mercedes from 2014 to 2020.

[36] 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.

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.

[44] Mateschitz personally donated 70 million euros to Paracelsus Medical University for a research center on spinal cord injuries.

[18] Mateschitz was in a relationship with the mother of his son, Anita Gerhardter, for two years, and later had a long-term partner named Marion Feichtner.

[17] He had his own hangar with a collection of old planes, including the last Douglas DC-6B ever produced, which once belonged to Yugoslav Marshal Josip Broz Tito.

[52] Mateschitz and his Bundesliga club RB Leipzig faced backlash in 2017 over comments he made in a Kleine Zeitung interview[53] in which he suggested that Austria should close its borders to refugees and expressed his support for Donald Trump and other populist positions.

[55] Mateschitz lived in Fuschl am See, Austria and also owned the island of Laucala in Fiji, which he bought from the Forbes family for £7 million.

[56][57][58] Mateschitz died following a long period of treatment for pancreatic cancer, at his home in St. Wolfgang im Salzkammergut on 22 October 2022, at age 78.