1. Xavier Niel is involved in the telecommunications and technology industry and is the founder and majority shareholder of the French Internet service provider and mobile operator Iliad trading under the Free brand.
18 Facts About Xavier Niel
1. 2.
Xavier Niel is co-owner of the newspaper Le Monde, co-owner of the rights of the song "My Way" and owner of Monaco Telecom, Salt Mobile and Eir.
3.
Xavier Niel is chairman and chief strategy officer for Iliad, and a board member of KKR, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, and ByteDance.
4.
Xavier Niel was born into a middle-class family; his father is a lawyer for a pharmaceutical laboratory, and his mother is an accountant.
5.
Xavier Niel studied in the 12th arrondissement of Paris at the Saint-Michel-de-Picpus Catholic private high school.
6.
Xavier Niel has stated that, to avoid being arrested, he briefly did espionage for, which allegedly included accessing the phone data of then-president Francois Mitterrand.
7.
Xavier Niel was sold for 30 million euros the year before the internet bubble burst in 2000.
8.
Xavier Niel made two unsuccessful attempts at buying out the company in 2024.
9.
In late 2010, along with Pierre Berge and Matthieu Pigasse, Xavier Niel acquired a controlling stake in Groupe Le Monde which edits the daily newspaper Le Monde but magazines such as l'Obs, Courrier International and Telerama.
10.
In June 2020, Xavier Niel acquired Paris-Turf which is France's first horseracing newspaper.
11.
In March 2010, Xavier Niel cofounded with Jeremie Berrebi Kima Ventures, a fund dedicated to invest in 50 to 100 startups a year everywhere in the world.
12.
In 2013, Xavier Niel created a school named 42, which is a free technical school with no teachers, no books, no tuition for 1000 people every year.
13.
In June 2017, Xavier Niel welcomed the French President Emmanuel Macron for the inauguration of Station F, a business incubator for startups located in Paris, known as the largest in the world.
14.
In 2015, Xavier Niel cofounded Mediawan, an international production and distribution group, together with Matthieu Pigasse and Pierre-Antoine Capton.
15.
Xavier Niel joined the board of US investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in March 2018 and the board of TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, in September 2024.
16.
Xavier Niel received the title of Knight of the Legion of Honour in 2022.
17.
Xavier Niel's domestic partner is French businesswoman Delphine Arnault, who is a director and executive vice president at Louis Vuitton, and the chairwoman and chief executive officer of Dior.
18.
Xavier Niel has a son and a daughter with her and two sons from a previous relationship, and lives in the 16th arrondissement of Paris.