Note: The business this man founded is also an acceptable answer.
Note: The business this man founded is also an acceptable answer. This man fled to Paris after a business he co-founded with Joseph Stargardt got in trouble for publishing pro-democratic pamphlets.  A meeting with Carl Friedrich Gauss at Goettingen University led him to finance a project which extended from Brest to Duxbury.  This partner of the PA firm signed a secret agreement with Bernhard Wolff's WTB and the Paris-based (*) Agence Havas giving his business monopoly control over the British Empire.  He secured permission to all minerals, factories and a railroad route to the Caspian in an egregiously generous concession from Persia's Nasir al-Din Shah.  He once used carrier pigeons to bridge an infrastructure gap between Brussels and Aachen.  He moved to London after the laying of the Dover-Calais cable and founded Continental Telegraph.  For 10 points, identify this namesake of a news agency that competes with the AP.
Note: The business this man founded is also an acceptable answer.
Paul Reuter [or Baron de Reuter; or Paul Julius Freiherr von Reuter; or Israel Beer Josaphat; or Israel Beer Josephsthal; accept Reuters]