Irénée du Pont
Irénée du Pont (1876–1963) was a U.S. businessman, former president of the DuPont company and head of the Du Pont trust.
[edit] Biography
A descendant of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, he graduated from Andover in 1894 and MIT in 1897, then worked for Fenn’s Manufacturing Contracting Company for a number of years before he joined DuPont. 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 was president of DuPont from 1919 to 1925 and remained on the board until he retired in 1958. Smedley Butler speculated to a congressional committee that DuPont may have been supportive of the possible Business Plot to overthrow President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
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)).
He built a mansion in Varadero, Cuba, which he named Xanadu.
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