Xavier Niel is a French billionaire entrepreneur and investor who founded and holds a majority stake in the telecommunications group Iliad. He is also the largest shareholder of Vodafone Group and Westfield Group, a co-owner of the newspaper Le Monde, and chairman of Iliad. Niel sits on the boards of KKR and ByteDance. His net worth is estimated at €30.1 billion by Challenges and at US$16 billion by Forbes, as of July 2026.
Early life
Niel grew up in Créteil, southeast of Paris, in a public housing development. His parents, a legal advisor and an accountant, moved him to a private Catholic school after a violent episode in his neighborhood. At 14, his father gave him a Sinclair ZX81 computer, and Niel taught himself programming by copying listings from a weekly computer magazine. He soon earned money writing software while still at school, and he dropped out of college in 1987 to start his first business.
Telecommunications career
Niel built his fortune first in Minitel services and later in internet access. In 1999 he founded Iliad and launched the internet provider Free, which introduced the Freebox bundle in 2002. In 2012 Iliad entered the French mobile market with a low-priced plan that pressured the incumbent operators. The group later expanded into Italy and Poland, and Niel's investment vehicle NJJ acquired stakes in operators across Europe and Latin America.