Back in early July 2021, Axios C.E.O. Jim VandeHei was in his home state of Wisconsin when he received an interesting inbound call. It came from Mathias Döpfner, the erudite and elegant C.E.O. of Axel Springer, the German media giant. During the past decade, Döpfner has greatly expanded both his firm’s footprint and its influence in the U.S. In 2015, Axel acquired Henry Blodget’s Business Insider for $450 million. Years later, Business Insider would buy a minority stake in Morning Brew for $75 million. Meanwhile, Axel entered into an investor agreement with KKR upon which Henry Kravis’s private equity colossus became the company’s majority shareholder for $3.2 billion. Döpfner was appointed to the Netflix board of directors in 2018.