Javier Milei

Javier Gerardo Milei (born 22 October 1970) is an Argentine politician and economist who is serving as the President of Argentina since December 2023.

Milei has taught university courses and written on various aspects of economics and politics, and also hosted radio programs on the subject.

Milei's views distinguish him in the Argentine political landscape and have garnered significant public attention and polarizing reactions.

In November 2021, Milei was elected to the Argentine Chamber of Deputies, representing the City of Buenos Aires for La Libertad Avanza.

As a national deputy, he limited his legislative activities to voting, focusing instead on critiquing what he sees as Argentina's political elite and its propensity for high government spending.

Milei pledged not to raise taxes and donated his national deputy salary through a monthly raffle.

He defeated economy minister Sergio Massa in the second round of the 2023 Argentine presidential election on a platform that held the ideological dominance of Peronism responsible for the still ongoing 2018 Argentine monetary crisis.

Milei is known for his flamboyant personality, distinctive personal style, and strong media presence.

He has been described politically as a right-wing populist and right-wing libertarian, and supports laissez-faire economics, aligning specifically with minarchist and anarcho-capitalist principles.

Milei has proposed a comprehensive overhaul of the country's fiscal and structural policies.

He supports freedom of choice on drug policy, firearms, prostitution and same-sex marriage, while opposing abortion and euthanasia.

In foreign policy, he advocates closer relations with the United States and Israel, supporting Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion of the country, and distancing Argentina from geopolitical ties with China.

Javier Gerardo Milei was born on 22 October 1970 in Palermo, Buenos Aires.

He grew up in the Villa Devoto neighborhood and later moved to Sáenz Peña, Buenos Aires.

Milei's mother, Alicia, was a homemaker, and his father, Norberto, was a bus driver.

His father is of Italian descent, while his mother, whose maiden name is Lucich, is of Croatian descent.

They are related to Uruguayan TV presenter Rodrigo Lussich, who said their grandparents migrated from Croatia to Argentina.

The collapse of Argentina's exchange rate led to Milei becoming interested in economics during the early 1980s.

Milei studied introductory economics and the law of supply and demand, which he thought seemed to be at odds with the ongoing hyperinflation; he said he saw people throwing "themselves on top of the merchandise" in a supermarket and began to study economics in more detail to understand it.

Milei obtained an economics degree (licentiate) from the private University of Belgrano and two master's degrees from the Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social and the private Torcuato Di Tella University.

For over 20 years, Milei was a professor of macroeconomics, economics of growth, microeconomics, and mathematics for economists.

He specializes in economic growth and has taught several economic subjects in Argentine universities and abroad.

He also played goalkeeper for the Chacarita Juniors football team until 1989, when Argentina suffered a period of hyperinflation and he committed to a career in economics.

During the 2010s, Milei achieved significant notoriety and public exposure in debates featured on Argentine television programs characterized by insults to his rivals, foul language, and aggressive rhetoric when expressing and debating his ideals and beliefs, such as one with Buenos Aires chief of government Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.

This led many commentators to label him antipolitical or disruptive.

Since 2012, Milei has led the division of Economic Studies at Fundación Acordar, a national think tank.

He is also a member of the B20 and a member of the Economic Policy Group of International Chamber of Commerce, an advisor to the G20.

For 15 years, he worked at the private company Corporación América as the chief economist and financial adviser to Eduardo Eurnekian.

Milei is the author of several books, including El camino del libertario.

He had written more than 50 academic papers by 2016.

By 2016, Milei had been the chief economist at Máxima AFJP, a private pension company; a head economist at Estudio Broda, a financial advising company; head economist of Corporación América; and a government consultant at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

He was also a senior economist at HSBC Argentina.

He served as chief economist at several national and international government public bodies.

His parents, according to Milei in 2018, beat and verbally abused him, causing him to not speak to them for a decade; he regarded them as dead.

He was supported by his maternal grandmother and his younger sister Karina, with whom he had a close bond, and whom he calls "the boss".

Javier Milei attended Catholic schools, including the secondary school Cardenal Copello.

At school, he was nicknamed el Loco ("The Crazy One") for his outbursts and aggressive rhetoric.

In his late teens and early adulthood, Milei sang in the cover band Everest, which mostly played Rolling Stones covers.

He has a notable presence on television, with a 2018 ranking by Ejes showing him as the most interviewed economist on television, at 235 interviews and 193,347 seconds.

Milei also hosted his own radio show, Demoliendo mitos (Demolishing Myths), featuring regular appearances by Alberdian and right-wing libertarian personalities, including the economist and businessman Gustavo Lazzari, the lawyer Pablo Torres Barthe, and the political scientist María Zaldívar.