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Xavier Niel
Xavier Niel (French pronunciation: [gzavje njɛl]; born 25 August 1967) is a French billionaire businessman. He 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 (France's second-largest ISP, and third mobile operator). He is also 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. He is chairman and chief strategy officer for Iliad, and also a board member of KKR, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, and ByteDance.
As of July 2025[update], his net worth is estimated at US$13 billion.
Xavier Niel was born into a middle-class family; his father is a lawyer for a pharmaceutical laboratory, and his mother is an accountant. He studied in the 12th arrondissement of Paris at the Saint-Michel-de-Picpus Catholic private high school.
Niel started early by developing telecommunication and data services and embarked at a young age on an entrepreneurial career soon after his father gave him a Sinclair ZX81 computer as a Christmas present when he was 15.
In 1987 at 19, while dropping out from school, he successfully created then sold his first company, a Minitel (a French forerunner of the internet) service company. This minitel-site provided sex oriented chat services. To do so, Niel bought press licenses in order to be able to become a service editor, diverting it in order to set up its commercial services. Through this, he became a millionaire in euros at the age of 24.
In his late teens, he was confronted by police for hacking Canal+ decoders. He has stated that, to avoid being arrested, he briefly did espionage for Direction de la surveillance du territoire, which allegedly included accessing the phone data of then-president François Mitterrand.
Telecommunications with Iliad
In 1995, he invested in the first Internet service provider in France, World-NET. The company was sold for 30 million euros the year before the internet bubble burst in 2000.
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Xavier Niel
Xavier Niel (French pronunciation: [gzavje njɛl]; born 25 August 1967) is a French billionaire businessman. He 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 (France's second-largest ISP, and third mobile operator). He is also 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. He is chairman and chief strategy officer for Iliad, and also a board member of KKR, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, and ByteDance.
As of July 2025[update], his net worth is estimated at US$13 billion.
Xavier Niel was born into a middle-class family; his father is a lawyer for a pharmaceutical laboratory, and his mother is an accountant. He studied in the 12th arrondissement of Paris at the Saint-Michel-de-Picpus Catholic private high school.
Niel started early by developing telecommunication and data services and embarked at a young age on an entrepreneurial career soon after his father gave him a Sinclair ZX81 computer as a Christmas present when he was 15.
In 1987 at 19, while dropping out from school, he successfully created then sold his first company, a Minitel (a French forerunner of the internet) service company. This minitel-site provided sex oriented chat services. To do so, Niel bought press licenses in order to be able to become a service editor, diverting it in order to set up its commercial services. Through this, he became a millionaire in euros at the age of 24.
In his late teens, he was confronted by police for hacking Canal+ decoders. He has stated that, to avoid being arrested, he briefly did espionage for Direction de la surveillance du territoire, which allegedly included accessing the phone data of then-president François Mitterrand.
Telecommunications with Iliad
In 1995, he invested in the first Internet service provider in France, World-NET. The company was sold for 30 million euros the year before the internet bubble burst in 2000.