During this Monday, it transpired that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) held a meeting with businessman Carlos Slim Helú , who has established himself as the richest man in the country thanks to a fortune made up of USD 55,930 million, according to the magazine financial Forbes . Through his official Twitter account, the man from Tabasco shared a photograph in which he appeared accompanied by the “telecommunications magnate.”
“I had breakfast with Carlos Slim who, in addition to being a friend and a good businessman, contributes to the development of the country. For example, América Móvil sold a subsidiary in the United States and they paid in Mexico, on December 16, 28 billion pesos to the Public Treasury, ”wrote the president, a situation that sparked controversy on social networks due to the proximity that currently exists between both characters.
According to journalist Diego Enrique Osorno in his investigation entitled Slim. Political biography of the richest Mexican in the world , the relationship between López Obrador and the owner of Grupo Carso began in 2000 , a time when the Tabasco served as Head of Government of the then Federal District and in which he invited the owner of América Móvil to invest in the country’s capital and reactivate the area economically.
However, the first disagreement between both personalities arose when AMLO expressed that he wanted to focus the rehabilitation in Paseo de la Reforma , contrary to Carlos Slim, who insisted on rehabilitating the Historic Center of Mexico City (CDMX) , which was appropriate and While the man from Tabasco signed a coordination agreement for the recovery of the area, the businessman was appointed as president of the Advisory Council of the project, for which he disbursed an estimated 1,000 million pesos.
According to Enrique Osorno, another legend that revolves around the relationship between AMLO and Carlos Slim was due to the great love of baseball on the part of both characters, which led them to consider the possibility that a Major League team existed. Leagues based in the Mexican capital and, although that never happened, the magnate invested in some projects in the Federal District.
In addition, after being elected as the Head of Government, the Tabasco appointed a commission of notables in which the “telecommunications magnate”, Jacobo Zabludovsky and the chronicler Carlos Monsiváis participated. In this way, for several years the president and Slim Helú had a cordial and distant relationship, which was also fractured due to the decisions that AMLO has made .
One of the most significant clashes between Slim and López Obrador occurred after the cancellation of the New Mexico City International Airport (NAICM) , which resulted in losses for the businessman of Lebanese descent. According to the financial magazine Forbes , Carlos Slim’s losses were influenced by factors such as exchange rate volatility and the fall in the value of his companies, whose effects were related to the cancellation of megaprojects.
Another hard blow to the net worth of the owner of the multinational América Móvil was the accident on Line 12 of the Metro Collective Transportation System (STCM) . After the incident, Slim had considerable losses after the presentation of the preliminary expert opinion of the causes behind the collapse of the infrastructure
The fortune of the “telecom tycoon” decreased was approximately USD 11,170 million since 2018. The losses Carlos Slim during this period, representing an estimated net worth of Ricardo Salinas Pliego in 2020, whose fortune was estimated at USD 11,700 million .