French billionaire turns up to Marseille car park ‘to fight’ with angry customer

A French billionaire was offered a ‘1v1’ fight with an angry social media user outside of a Lidl in Marseille and responded by turning up, albeit a few months late. 

The user sent a tweet out on X in May: “Xavier Niel, I hate you, I am offering you a 1v1 in front of the Lidl Rue Sainte in Marseille”. He later explained that he was frustrated by internet connectivity issues with a firm Mr Niel owns as he played a video game. 

Mr Niel is the founder and majority shareholder of the French Internet service provider and mobile operator Iliad trading under the Free brand. 

He also owns Monaco Telecom, Salt Mobile and Eir, co-owns French newspaper Le Monde, and – perhaps surprisingly – owns the rights to the song My Way, famously sung by Frank Sinatra.

Read more: Hacker, peep shows, jail: the story of a French tech billionaire

He remembered the tweet six months later, posting a response on November 15 consisting of a photo of him outside of the relevant Lidl, captioned ‘I am waiting for you’. 

Mr Niel then added a video, in which he said: “I am here, I am waiting, where are you? You want to meet in the car park? Come, come, grow a pair!”

However, the original poster declined the invitation, saying “I would have liked to, but 34.2 temperature + stomach ache + headache sorry I give up.”  

Mr Niel won the online exchange, which was generally well received on social media, with users stating “you are my favourite rich person Xav” and “the only CEO who is not cringe on social media.” 

However, others pointed out that this sort of exchange will not make them forget the leak of 15 million Free users’ private data and five million bank details. 

Read more: 20 million Free clients subject to data leak: what victims should do

Mr Niel’s original response has been viewed over 11 million times so far with more than 170 thousand likes. 

He is often nicknamed the Pirate, due to his early hacking days.