Javier Milei

• 1. Introduction

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  Javier Milei is the 57th president of Argentina, and his most recognizable prop is a chainsaw. Supporters carry chainsaws to his rallies as a symbol of his promise to cut down the size of the state. Commentators have even coined the term chainsaw economics for his style of slashing rules and red tape. He ends many speeches with one shouted line: "¡Viva la libertad, carajo!"

  Milei did not rise through a political dynasty or a long career in a party machine. He arrived as a loud outsider who treated the country's political class as an enemy to be exposed. That raises a set of questions. What shaped a man so fixated on money, prices and the power of markets? How does a self-styled outsider become a candidate that millions will vote for? What happened to wages, inflation and poverty once he started cutting? And what do the scandals around him say about the movement he built?

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• 2. The Madman From Palermo

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  Javier Gerardo Milei was born on the 22nd of October 1970 in Palermo, a district of Buenos Aires. His father, Norberto, drove a bus before becoming a successful businessman, and his mother, Alicia, was a homemaker. The family lived in Villa Devoto, and Milei later moved to the Sáenz Peña district.

  His ancestry runs through southern and central Italy and through Croatia. A paternal grandfather came from Rossano, in Calabria, in 1926. On his mother's side, forebears came from the island of Hvar in Croatia and from the Marche region of Italy. In 2024 Milei said that this grandfather, a major influence on him, learned shortly before his death that he had Jewish ancestry through his mother's line.

  Milei describes a harsh childhood. He says he suffered abuse at home, and after leaving as a young adult he did not speak to his parents for ten years. By 2018 he had cut off contact entirely and regarded them as dead. He credits that experience with teaching him to handle adversity. Support came from his maternal grandmother and his younger sister, Karina, whom he calls "the boss".

  At the Catholic secondary school Cardenal Copello, classmates nicknamed him el Loco, "the Madman", because of his outbursts and passionate speeches. Outside class he sang in a cover band called Everest, which mostly played songs by the Rolling Stones. He also kept goal for the Chacarita Juniors football team, and he stayed there until 1989.

  That year hyperinflation hit Argentina, and Milei turned to economics. The collapse of the exchange rate had already sparked his curiosity in the early 1980s. Standard lessons about supply and demand seemed to contradict what he saw around him. He recalls watching people in a supermarket "throwing themselves on top of the merchandise" and resolving to study the subject properly. Karina, the sister who stood by him, would later run his presidential campaign.

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• 3. A Pundit With a Loud Voice

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  For 15 years Milei worked at the private company Corporación América as chief economist and financial adviser to Eduardo Eurnekian. He holds an economics degree from the University of Belgrano. He also took postgraduate courses at the Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social and at Torcuato di Tella University, though he finished neither. He wrote several books, among them El camino del libertario.

  Television made him known. A 2018 ranking by Ejes found that he was the most interviewed economist on Argentine TV, with 235 appearances totaling 193,347 seconds. He also hosted a radio show called Demoliendo mitos, or Demolishing Myths. Regular guests included the economist Gustavo Lazzari, the lawyer Pablo Torres Barthe and the political scientist María Zaldívar.

  On panels he was known for strong language and confrontation. In one debate, with Buenos Aires chief of government Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, he insulted a fellow participant and used profanity. Commentators began calling him anti-political or disruptive. The American senator Ted Cruz later joked that he should be invited to the 2024 Republican presidential debates.

  His targets were specific. In February 2017 he praised the former economy minister Domingo Cavallo as the best person ever to hold the post. That November he attacked the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, calling it a center of Marxist indoctrination. In June 2018 he called the journalist Teresita Frías "dumb" after she described his views as totalitarian. A local court briefly imposed appearance restrictions on him, though no charges followed.

  The persona kept growing. In 2018 he made his acting debut in a play, El consultorio de Milei, alongside Claudio Rico and Diego Sucalesca. Admirers call him "The Lion", partly because he sings the La Renga song "Panic Show" at public events. Others call him el Peluca, "The Wig", for his hair, or el Loco again. He has appeared as a cosplayed superhero named "General AnCap". He owns five cloned English Mastiffs descended from Conan, a dog that died in 2017 of spinal cancer, and he calls Conan his son. Time put him on its list of the 100 most influential people in 2024 and 2025.

  In 2019 the magazine Noticias had already placed him on its list of Argentina's most influential people. By 2020 he was publicly backing protests against President Alberto Fernández, and soon he joined a political party.

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• 4. Lions, Raffles and Coinx

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  From 2020 to 2021, Milei belonged to Avanza Libertad, a party founded by José Luis Espert. In his campaign for the Chamber of Deputies he walked through Buenos Aires neighborhoods and chatted with ordinary people. His slogan was "I didn't come here to lead lambs, but to awaken lions". He called politicians "rats" and described them as a parasitic caste that never worked. Young voters were especially drawn to him, and during the campaign he reconciled with his parents.

  In July 2021 he founded his own coalition, La Libertad Avanza. It finished third in the primaries with 13.66 percent of the vote, then third again in the legislative election with 17 percent. It did best in Córdoba and Santa Fe, and it also did well in Peronist strongholds such as Tucumán, Salta and Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz in Patagonia is considered the cradle of Kirchnerism.

  Once seated, Milei began raffling off his monthly deputy salary to the public. He called the pay "dirty money" taken by force, and said he was returning cash "stolen by the political caste". By the time of one report, the raffles had given away over seven million pesos. His legislative record was thin. His attendance in the chamber stood at 52 percent as of April 2023, and by August 2023 he had introduced no legislation and joined no commissions. One absence let the government pass a tax on airline tickets by a single vote, and the coalition Juntos por el Cambio blamed him.

  On the 18th of December 2021, the man who attacked the financial elite posted on Instagram in praise of Coinx World. He had visited the firm's Buenos Aires offices and urged followers to contact it. Experts compared the company to a Ponzi scheme. In 2022 the National Securities Commission declared its offering irregular, and Milei was not registered to invite the public to invest.

  In a June 2022 interview with the journalist Ernesto Tenembaum, Milei said he was paid for the endorsement, as he is for all his opinions. He insisted the company "did not scam anyone". In 2023 regulators shut Coinx World after a criminal investigation. Police raided offices in Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, and four employees, including the chief executive, were arrested. Investors, many of whom followed Milei online, sued him over losses estimated between 30 million and 40 million, about 300,000 at the time.

  A separate matter surfaced in July 2023, when Milei was investigated over claims that candidacies on his coalition's lists were being sold. Prosecutor Ramiro González said there was no concrete evidence. The case closed in March 2024 for lack of grounds to bring charges.

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• 5. The 2023 Upset

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  In June 2022 Milei formally launched his run for president, with Victoria Villarruel as his running mate. A March 2023 poll gave him 17 percent. His message resonated with voters under 30, who had grown up in the shadow of the great depression of 1998-2002 and still faced economic stagnation. Some of his supporters had once voted for Kirchnerism and backed him simply as a protest.

  Two analysts, Lucas Romero of Synopsis and Andrei Roman of Atlas Intel, argued that his victory reflected anger at the establishment more than approval of his ideas. Annual inflation rose above 100 percent in May 2023, and his poll numbers rose with it. The next month, markets welcomed Sergio Massa's candidacy, which polarized the race between the ruling party and Juntos por el Cambio and dented the "Milei factor".

  The campaign produced unforgettable stunts. A viral video showed him pulling cards from a wall of ministry names and tossing them in the air with the word afuera, meaning "out". He smashed a piñata on air to represent his plans. He also called Pope Francis "a filthy leftist" and praised the American gangster Al Capone as "a hero".

  In the August 2023 primaries he took about 30 percent, ahead of both Peronism-Kirchnerism and Macrism. Polls had put him near 20 percent and treated him as an outsider, and had expected Massa to lead. Jair Bolsonaro, José Antonio Kast, Ted Cruz and the Spanish party Vox celebrated. Some Peronists had first hoped he would split the vote of Juntos por el Cambio.

  On the 22nd of October, Milei advanced to a runoff against Massa. On the 19th of November he beat Massa by a landslide, winning the highest vote share since Argentina returned to democracy. Observers read the result as discontent with the status quo, and compared it to the wins of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. His coalition held roughly 20 percent of the Chamber of Deputies and 10 percent of the Senate. In his victory speech he promised the "reconstruction of Argentina" and an end to its decline.

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• 6. Shock Therapy

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  On the 10th of December 2023, Milei took office with weak support in Congress and annual inflation approaching 200 percent. "There is no alternative to a shock adjustment," he said at his inauguration. "There is no money." Within days an Aresco poll found 53 percent of Argentines held a good or excellent opinion of him.

  His first acts were swift. He signed 13 decrees on cabinet matters and cut the number of ministries from 18 to 9. He changed the anti-nepotism law so his sister could serve as General Secretary of the Presidency. Decree 70/2023 deregulated the economy. A court halted its labor provisions, and the CGT union federation staged a 12-hour general strike that cancelled hundreds of flights.

  Inflation was the central test. Annual inflation was 254.2 percent in his first month and peaked at 300 percent in May 2024. By July 2025 the annual figure was 39.4 percent, and monthly inflation was 1.5 percent. His government cut about 52,000 public positions, between 9.6 percent and 15.7 percent depending on the count, and replaced the tax agency AFIP with a smaller body. Government spending fell by 30 percent in the early months. Six consecutive months of financial surplus followed, a first since 2008.

  Legislation came slowly. In June 2024 he passed a heavily watered-down omnibus bill. In July 2024 Congress approved the Ley de Bases, which includes the Incentive Regime for Large Investments, known as RIGI. It guarantees stable tax, currency and trade rules for up to 30 years on projects above US$200 million. Investments above US$1 billion receive extra benefits, such as lower corporate taxes and phased removal of export taxes.

  Some results were striking. After rent controls were repealed in December 2023, the supply of rental units rose 190 percent and real rents fell 40 percent. Alejandro Werner, a former International Monetary Fund official, said Milei "has done more good than many people expected" and that change sometimes needs "somebody that's a little bit of a fanatic".

  The human cost is harder to read. Poverty climbed from 41.7 percent to 52.9 percent in his first six months, peaking at 57.4 percent at the end of January 2024. His government replied that it was already rising before he took office. Official figures from INDEC later showed poverty at 38.1 percent in the third quarter of 2024 and 31.6 percent in the first half of 2025. The Catholic University of Argentina disputes the size of that drop and puts the figure at 36.3 percent.

  In 2024 the economy shrank in the first two quarters, by 2.1 and 1.8 percent, before growing 3.9 percent in the final quarter. A drought-hit farm sector rebounded by 80.2 percent. Meanwhile, Argentines still buy around $2 billion of foreign currency a month, hoarding what they call "mattress dollars". The memory of 2001, when most savers lost nearly 75 percent of their savings in a forced conversion to pesos, still shapes that distrust.

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• 7. Friends and Enemies Abroad

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  On the 6th of February 2024, Milei traveled to Israel and announced plans to move Argentina's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That trip captured a wider turn. His government dropped the plan to join the BRICS bloc, and he aligned the country with the United States and Israel. Analysts compared this to the policies of President Menem in the 1990s.

  The Israel link is also personal. Milei reads the Torah daily, has visited the grave of the Orthodox rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and once considered converting to Judaism. In July 2024 he declared Hamas a terrorist organization. After the Bibas family, Argentine citizens kidnapped by Hamas, were confirmed dead, he decreed two days of national mourning on the 21st of February 2025. In 2025 he became the first non-Jew to win the Genesis Prize, whose $1 million went toward the Isaac Accords idea. In January 2026 he designated Iran's Quds Force a terrorist organization.

  On Ukraine he broke with some right-wing allies. In March 2024 he approved the transfer of two Mi-171E military helicopters to Kyiv, and on the 18th of April Argentina asked to become a NATO global partner. After the American administration changed in 2025, his government backed United States-led peace efforts.

  Latin America brought sharper clashes. He called the 2024 Venezuelan election fraudulent and urged Nicolás Maduro to resign. On the 7th of August 2024 Argentina became one of the first countries to recognize Edmundo González as the legitimate president. Venezuela ordered Milei's arrest and Argentina ordered Maduro's. He also called Colombia's Gustavo Petro a "murderous terrorist" and Brazil's Lula da Silva "corrupt" and "communist". When Maduro was captured in January 2026, Milei celebrated on X.

  Cuba tested his own cabinet. In October 2024 he fired foreign minister Diana Mondino after she failed to back the United States embargo of Cuba at the United Nations. A year later he ordered a yes vote, the first time Argentina had ever supported the blockade, joined by only six other countries.

  China was a delicate case. He threatened during the campaign to cut ties with Beijing. After his win, Taiwan offered congratulations and rumors of Taiwanese campaign financing spread. Beijing warned it might stop buying Argentine soy and meat, and Buenos Aires said there had been no official contact. By January 2026 he described Chinese trade ties as pragmatic.

  He ties himself closely to Donald Trump. He attended Trump's second inauguration in January 2025, and Argentina announced on the 5th of February that it would leave the World Health Organization. The exit was completed on the 17th of March 2026. As for the embassy, the move was paused in January 2026 over Israeli business in the Falkland Islands, then reactivated in April 2026.

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• 8. Cryptogate and the Verdict of the Ballot

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  In February 2025 Milei promoted a meme coin called $LIBRA on his X account, and its price crashed shortly afterward. Critics suggested it could have been a rug pull. The Economist called the affair the first big scandal of his presidency, and the media dubbed it Cryptogate. A group led by Claudio Lozano filed fraud charges, and opposition lawmakers called for impeachment, though they lacked the votes in the Impeachment Commission.

  Milei admitted that promoting the coin was a mistake and said he had no part in building it. Reports tied his associates Mauricio Novelli and Manuel Terrones Godoy to the creator, Hayden Davis. Novelli was said to have accepted bribes for access to the president, though there is no evidence Milei knew. He asked the Anti-Corruption office to investigate, but it sits inside the executive branch and its director was appointed by him.

  On the 26th of February 2025 he filled two Supreme Court vacancies by decree, naming Ariel Lijo and Manuel García-Mansilla. Human Rights Watch called the move one of the most serious attacks on the court's independence since the return of democracy. On the 4th of April the Senate rejected both, 51-21 against García-Mansilla and 43-27 against Lijo.

  In August 2025 leaked audio from Diego Spagnuolo, the former head of the National Disability Agency, alleged an "8% commission" on contracts. He said part of it would go to Karina Milei and her associate Eduardo "Lule" Menem. No evidence ties Javier Milei to the scheme. His approval fell from a steady 48 percent to 39 percent.

  On the 7th of September 2025, La Libertad Avanza lost the Buenos Aires provincial vote, 33 percent to the Peronists' 47 percent. Markets panicked. Argentina burned through 1 billion dollars of reserves to defend the peso until Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said all options were open, including a 20 billion dollar swap line. By the 25th of September, Milei's approval hit an all-time low of 32.1 percent.

  Then came the October 2025 midterms. La Libertad Avanza won 40.84 percent against 31.63 percent for the Peronist Homeland Force, far above the 30 to 35 percent that polls predicted. Turnout was 67.85 percent, the lowest for a national election since 1983. Political scientist Carlos Fara said rejection of Peronism outweighed fatigue with Milei's style. Bonds rose 23 percent in a day, and the country risk index fell from 1081 to 652.

  He then gathered governors from 20 of 23 provinces to build support for the 2026 budget and for labor, tax and penal-code reforms. In February 2026 Congress passed a law liberalizing labor rules. Yet a March 2026 poll found that 62 percent of Argentines held a negative view of him and 37 percent a positive one.

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