Sheinbaum vs. Salinas Pliego: Million-dollar debt and gender violence escalate the conflict

Mexico City ( Proceso ) – A fractured relationship and back-and-forth accusations against Grupo Salinas owner Ricardo Salinas Pliego were what President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo inherited. But in the context of recent rulings against the businessman forcing him to pay billions of pesos to the Treasury, the clash has now escalated into gender-based violence.

Since taking office, Sheinbaum Pardo has repeatedly stated, "Let (Salinas Pliego) pay his taxes," and the owner of TV Azteca claims he is being used as a smokescreen to avoid discussing the insecurity in Mexico.

In the last two weeks, the discussion began to change when the head of the federal executive branch made public her disagreement—which, she asserted, should also be a social condemnation—with the misogynistic expressions the businessman publishes on his social media, a misogyny that has been suffered for more than two years, for example, by the head of the Secretariat of Women, Citlalli Hernández.

Thus, recently, the president showed her solidarity with lawyer Vanessa Romero, academic Denise Dresser and columnist Sabina Berman .

Although she noted about Dresser: “Look, we (she and I) don't agree on almost anything,” Sheinbaum focused on indicating that “you can't call a woman the way this person (the owner of TV Azteca) addresses her, with misogyny, machismo, a terrible (...) And it has to be a social issue, not just for the president, because it can't be the way she addresses journalists, whether we agree with her or not.”

In the following days, the president again condemned the businessman's adjectives as "unacceptable, humiliating, derogatory, discriminatory, and offensive" and said it was her duty, "as the first female president, to defend women."

The businessman, in turn, responded that he does so to defend himself from the "attacks" of the aforementioned women.

Prior to these accusations, the federal leader rebuked: "He (Salinas Pliego) says that 'he is being charged unfairly,' but no court—even though he has many connections—has ruled in his favor. The most they've done is postpone and postpone and postpone, and these are issues that date back even before the López Obrador administration. No court has said he shouldn't pay; what they've done is postpone, in one case, for 16 years."

In her statements, the federal leader revealed the expected outcome from the new judiciary, especially given the businessman's repeated defeats in court. Salinas Pliego has spoken out against the authorities for "giving the line."

Sheinbaum also explained: "If they decide to pay, the benefits that this would entail compared to the possibility of payment would apply to them, as would any other debtor to the treasury; if they don't, they will have to abide by the ruling of the judges or ministers."

Among the criticisms, the head of the Executive has recalled the businessman's maneuvers to evade paying the corresponding taxes.

"He's looking for him here, he's looking for him there, and he's going to fight the 4T and the president; yes, but he owes 74 billion pesos. So, what's going on at the bottom of it?" he questioned.

President Sheinbaum has used me as her distraction for the fifth consecutive day. On behalf of the interests of millions of Mexicans for the stability and progress of the country, I insist that you focus your efforts on the priorities that afflict Mexico.

As the first woman to hold the… https://t.co/0AKpI5xRb2 — Don Ricardo Salinas Pliego (@RicardoBSalinas) July 10, 2025

Genesis of the conflict

The relationship between Ricardo Salinas Pliego and the 4T movement began with the businessman's friendship with then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who at the beginning of the dispute avoided speaking negatively about the owner of TV Azteca.

As recently as August 2022, Proceso questioned the Tabasco native about the waste of thousands of liters of water at the Tangolunda golf course in Bahías de Huatulco, which had been reported by local social organizations. Among the irregularities committed by Salinas Pliego is his failure to comply with the terms of the concession.

The president's response at the time was that once the concession period expired, the person who would have priority to purchase the space would be the owner of Grupo Salinas.

However, the case ended with the declaration of Tangolunda National Park. To achieve this, the National Guard was even deployed to the golf course, despite Salinas Pliego's refusal to return it to the nation.

In various editions, Proceso has published journalistic pieces that expose the businessman's legal strategy to postpone paying Income Tax (ISR) for up to three years.

To this end, businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego is leveraging and privileging his operations with the company known as "Nueva Elektra del Milenio," a holding company that adheres to the tax regime for controlling companies, which was designed in 2013 to also reduce the effective tax rate.

The issue was presented to the federal president by this publishing house. Furthermore, instead of paying taxes, he launched a "Earn with Uncle Richi" platform offering to share his fortune with the public.

The then federal president responded: "I have no information about that, I don't know if it exists." Although he promised to analyze the case, he accused it of only generating controversy.

Proceso was the first media outlet to bring up Salinas Pliego's tax debt during the morning press conference, mentioning that he owed at least 18 billion pesos.

"It's in the Judiciary, and we have to wait for a resolution. The Court already ruled that they should pay, I believe, two billion, and they've already paid it, and I have no information that they have any outstanding debts."

Thus, the federal president still defended the idea that Salinas Pliego was not an enemy of the 4T and avoided discussing his debts, even when the businessman attacked free textbooks in a campaign on TV Azteca newscasts, in which he spoke of such content as "spreading a communist virus."

But the Federal Attorney General's Office, then headed by Félix Arturo Medina—now Undersecretary of Human Rights at the Ministry of the Interior—intervened, revealing that the debts could not be hidden, and just 22 days after Proceso 's report, it confirmed the information.

On August 22, 2023, the federal government spoke for the first time about Ricardo Salinas Pliego's tax debt. Since then, the issue has not been dropped, given that it is an issue that has been postponed for even more years amid refusals by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation to take up the case, delays, and disagreements over its discussion and resolution.

Medina presented the issue as "the actions of judges or magistrates of the Judicial Branch have prevented the advancement of trials or criminal proceedings, generating delays in the administration of justice and, therefore, impunity," and referred to matters involving large taxpayers.

At that time, all of that "handful of people" owed nearly 80 billion pesos; today, Salinas Pliego alone owes 74 billion pesos (almost four billion dollars at the current exchange rate).

"A large company with a national presence was audited during the years 2010, 2011 and 2013 and found to have failed to pay taxes for more than 25 billion pesos (...) This company, abusing its large corporate structure, has operated various legal strategies to challenge and delay the issuance of a ruling requiring it to pay taxes," Félix Medina stated more than two years ago.

The name of the company was not disclosed, "otherwise they'll say we altered the process," the president said at the time. The businessman responded that he would continue to seek legal recourse to avoid paying those taxes, in addition to escalating the differences with López Obrador.

Although in November 2023 AMLO asserted that "we cannot turn a blind eye, we cannot in any way act as accomplices because, imagine, if this, which was not known, is kept quiet... I already mentioned the case of other businessmen who are paying."

Later, the president publicly confessed that he offered Salinas Pliego a pay cut.

The former federal president also revealed an attempt at an agreement between himself and the debtor businessman:

"We met relatively recently because he sought me out, asking how we could reach an agreement. I told him yes (…) it's not ours, it didn't come up with our government, it's been accumulating, and I don't know how many audits have been done (…) there's always the possibility of seeking an agreement.

Ricardo comes to me, and I say, 'Yes, let's see how this is resolved,' and I ask the director of the SAT and the tax attorney to conduct a thorough review, again, to see how much could be taken away. How much could the reduction be... legal because you can't do an illegal one; imagine the liability.

López Obrador explained that the proposed reduction was significant, as it amounted to eight billion pesos, and he asked federal authorities to propose it, and he would assume the social and political cost.

"I had to come here with you to tell you that you are the ones who broadcast information to the people. From everything that was in court, it was considered that these surcharges could be removed so that this amount could be paid. I said, 'I'll accept it because my conscience is clear.' Of course, I already knew what my adversaries were going to say, those same friends or those from Ricardo's class," the president said.

In the end, Salinas Pliego rejected the pact, and the Tabasco native asserted that it gave him relief, as it would ultimately mean differential treatment from the rest of the tax-paying sector. He admitted that he thought the businessman was seeking to have those taxes eliminated entirely, which didn't happen.

From there, the confrontation continued unabated and now continues with President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has had to insist that he pay what he owes to the treasury and, furthermore, that he respect women.