Eike Batista

Batista was the second of seven children of businessman Eliezer Batista, who was Minister of Mines and Energy in the João Goulart and Fernando Collor administrations and a former president of Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (now known simply as Vale), then wholly a state enterprise, between 1961–1964, and 1979–1986. His mother, Jutta Fuhrken, was born in Germany and, from her, Batista says he learned self-esteem and discipline, attributes he considers crucial to his formation as an entrepreneur. After spending his childhood in Brazil, Batista and his family moved to Europe when he was a teenager, due to his father's occupation. They lived in Geneva, Düsseldorf and Brussels.

In 1974, he began to study metallurgical engineering at the University of Aachen in Germany. When he was 18 years old, his parents returned to Brazil. Batista remained abroad and began selling insurance policies door-to-door to make his living. In interviews, he often mentions that the "stress" and the lessons learned from this experience were essential for his education.

Batista returned to Brazil in the early 1980s and focused his attention on the gold and diamond trades. He established himself as a salesman, contacting producers in the Amazon area and buyers in large metropolitan centers in Brazil and Europe. When he was 23 years old, he started a gold trading firm, called Autram Aurem, using the Inca Sun as the company trademark and symbol. A year and a half later, the company had earned US$6 million.

He implemented the first mechanized alluvial gold mining plant in the Amazon, marking the beginning of the EBX Group. At age 29, he became CEO of TVX Gold, a company listed on the Montreal Stock Exchange, initiating his relationship with global capital markets. From 1980 to 2000, he created US$20 billion in value with the operation of eight gold mines in Brazil and Canada and a silver mine in Chile.

Between 1991 and 1996, the value of his company more than tripled.

Batista married the model Luma de Oliveira in 1991, and divorced her in 2004. They had two boys, Olin and Thor. He later dated businesswoman and lawyer Flávia Sampaio for several years, with whom he had a third son in 2013, named Balder. Batista enjoys running, swimming and practices marine sports. In the 90s, he was the Brazilian, U.S. and World Champion in the Super Offshore Powerboat class. In 2006, he covered the 220 nautical miles between Santos and Rio de Janeiro in 3h01m47s and beat the record for the course in his boat, the Spirit of Brazil. Batista maintains an active digital life, with a personal site with articles, videos and news about his companies. The digital channel that Batista has chosen as his primary means of personal communication is Twitter. In 2011, Batista released the book The Heart of the Matter (O X da Questão) which recounts his trajectory in the business world and offers tips on entrepreneurialism.

In January 2017, Brazilian authorities issued a detention order for Batista and eight other individuals as part of Operation Car Wash (Portuguese: Operação Lava Jato), a high-profile $100 million money laundering investigation. Batista returned from New York and was detained in the maximum security prison in Bangu. On April 28, 2017 Supreme Court judge Gilmar Mendes ordered Batista's release pending trial. Batista had been charged with making $16.5 million in bribes to the former governor of Rio de Janeiro state.

On July 3, 2018, Batista was provisionally convicted of performing unaccounted campaign contributions to former Rio de Janeiro governor Sérgio Cabral Filho, and was provisionally sentenced to imprisonment, pending appeal. Batista appealed the verdict, and its effects were nullified under the terms of the Plea Bargain agreement.

On March 24, 2020, Eike Batista entered into a plea bargain agreement valued at US$160 million, which nullified the effects of all his criminal indictments, commuted his criminal convictions, and granted him release from imprisonment and/or house arrest—thereby setting him free.