On 22 October 2022, Dietrich Mateschitz, founder and financier of Red Bull, died at the age of 78. Without Mateschitz, RB Leipzig would not exist. It was the Austrian who acquired the licence of SSV Markranstadt in 2009 and shaped it into a Bundesliga club in the space of only seven years. His death raised questions about the future of the Red Bull empire — questions that remained largely unanswered up to 2026. The machine kept running.