Biography:

Irénée du Pont I (December 21, 1876 – December 19, 1963) was a U.S. businessman, former president of the DuPont company and head of the Du Pont trust.

He was born on December 21, 1876 in New Castle, Delaware.[1] He was a descendant of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. He graduated from Andover Academy in 1894 and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1897. While at MIT, he was a member of the Phi Beta Epsilon fraternity, where he was one of the first brothers, contributing over $4,000,000 to the fraternity throughout his lifetime.

He worked for Fenn's Manufacturing Contracting Company for a number of years before he joined DuPont. He was president of DuPont from 1919 to 1925. He retired from the board of directors of DuPont in 1958.

He built a mansion in Varadero, Cuba, which he named Xanadu. In 1957, Fortune estimated his wealth at between $200 million and $400 million, making him one of the two richest members of the Du Pont family at that time, and one of the twenty richest Americans (see Wealthiest Americans (1957)). In the 1930s, he was a proponent of eugenics.
He died on December 19, 1963 in Wilmington, Delaware.