After Mustafa Koç and Joe Biden

When he passed away after a heart attack on Jan. 21 at the age of 55, Mustafa Koç was head of the top industrial group in Turkey. Koç Holdings, the only entry from Turkey in Fortune's Top 500, represents nearly 10 percent of the country's GDP, 14 percent of its total exports (45 percent of the country's total automotive exports) and employs more than 80,000 people.

Koç was the third generation leader of his family after grandfather Vehbi Koç, a representative of the first generation of industrialists after the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Vehbi's son, Rahmi, transferred all offices to his son, Mustafa, in 2003 who developed the company further.

Subject to criticisms due to being the biggest capitalists in Turkey, the perception of the Koç group and the family dramatically changed during the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul in June 2013. When a group of protesters trying to escape from water cannons and pepper gas of the police, some with injuries, tried to seek shelter in the nearby Divan hotel (which is a Koç-owned hotel) where they were not turned away and even given basic treatment. 

That had infuriated then-prime minister Tayyip Erdo?an, whose Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) government and pro-government media then targeted the Koç group, particularly Mustafa Koç. Important infrastructure and defense tenders that Koç had won were cancelled. It took some time for the relations to be recovered. President Erdo?an said the night before his death, Mustafa Koç visited him to talk about defense projects; other than his family and aides, Erdo?an was the last person Koç talked to.

What happened next was spectacular, in a sense: A wave of sympathy grew for late Koç among...