There’s a lot of mystery and secrecy that surrounds Santiago Caputo, the top strategist to Argentina’s President Javier Milei.
On the rare occasions he’s been spotted in public, he’s often lighting up a cigarette in his signature Ray-Bans, sometimes leaning against the pale pink columns of the presidential palace. Russian-style jail tattoos peek through the sleeves of the 39-year-old’s light blue or white button-ups, his usual work attire. It all adds to the allure of a man who, up until two years ago, was a nobody outside of niche political circles.
Today, Caputo “is the hottest ticket for meeting requests from hedge funds and institutional investors visiting Argentina,” said Walter Stoeppelwerth, chief investment officer at Buenos Aires-based brokerage Grit Capital Group. “And he should be, given his pivotal role as support beam and media architect of the president’s cultural-change campaign.”
Caputo’s status comes from the oversize influence he has over Milei – sometimes even more so than his uncle, Economy Minister Luis Caputo.
Santiago Caputo consults on Milei’s polarising speeches, like the one the president gave at Davos, in which he railed against “wokeism” and the corrupt politicians he blames for bringing Argentina to ruin. Another Milei speech at the United Nations General Assembly came under fire from local media for borrowing heavily from fictional President Jed Bartlet of Caputo’s favourite show, The West Wing. Even with its very liberal trappings, the series represents how Caputo wishes politics was. He encourages his reports to watch it at least once a year.
The president’s social media apparatus, including troll accounts that knock back insults and amplify praise, are overseen by Caputo. Last month, some of those accounts mocked leftist journalist and frequent government critic Julia Mengolini after rumours circulated online that she was having an incestuous relationship with her brother. She and Milei are now entangled in a legal battle over slander.
The details of Caputo’s role in government and his thinking are based on interviews with a dozen government officials, friends and former colleagues, all of whom asked not to be named talking about one of Argentina’s most influential players. Caputo declined to speak for this article.
Caputo’s duties range far wider. He oversees Milei’s intelligence agency, immigration and customs units, the anti-money-laundering department and privatisations. Yet behind closed doors, he’s known for his charm and even temper, keeping his cool through the chaos he helps curate. Caputo has also handpicked many top officials and helps lead negotiations in Congress. When asked about Caputo’s role, Milei once said he’s his number two when it comes to politics.
As Caputo’s influence – and the public funds he exerts control over – ballooned after Milei first named him the “architect” of his landslide victory, so has the rumoured friction with the other Milei whisperer, the president’s sister Karina. The three form what Milei calls his “iron triangle.”
Karina’s aides and Caputo are known to butt heads on political strategy, especially as October’s midterm election nears. Investors are closely watching the vote, viewing it as a referendum on Milei’s Presidency.
True believer
Argentine artist Benjamín Solari Parravicini predicted that a man would one day save Argentina from having a bloody uprising like the French Revolution. He depicted that figure, the grey man, in a drawing back in 1941.
And to Caputo, that man is Milei. During the throes of the long-shot presidential campaign that Caputo ran for Milei in 2023, he got that very image tattooed across his upper back, as shown in a post on X from his friend and colleague Agustín Romo. A much larger version of the same painting hangs in Caputo’s office inside Casa Rosada.
Caputo has long held the anti-woke, small-state conservative views he promotes, and long searched for an outsider to amplify them in the public arena. When he came across the foul-mouthed TV pundit unafraid of overturning the status quo, he knew he’d found his guy.
The two met during the 2021 congressional campaign, through Caputo’s friend and schoolmate, Ramiro Marra, a Buenos Aires City legislator and close ally of Milei. Caputo was working at Move Group at the time – an esteemed consultancy firm in the Argentine capital that serves clients of all political stripes – and acted as an adviser on Milei’s run. And when Milei was ready to run for president in 2023, Caputo jumped ship to work for Milei full-time.
“He’s a true believer” in Milei and his political project, said Martín Yeza, a national congressman for Propuesta Republicana, or the PRO party, who hired Caputo to work on his mayoral campaign in the coastal city of Pinamar during the 2015 election. Yeza says the two can be discussing politics or joking but as soon as Milei or his policies come up, Caputo’s expression turns serious.
“I’ve known him for 17 years and I love that as a person, he’s absolutely normal, which I say as a compliment,” Yeza said. But as a political strategist, Caputo is “very disruptive. He’s here to show you don’t get to the centre by being centred but promoting diametrically opposed policies.”
Caputo studied political science at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) but never finished, and got his start over a decade ago in political consultancy under Jaime Durán Barba, the famous Ecuadorean political strategist behind former president Mauricio Macri.
Both during and after the pro-market administration, Caputo long lobbied Macri’s inner circle to “let Macri be Macri.” That is, to carry out his full fiscal cuts and embrace his right-wing ideology without fretting over political correctness. But Macri took a more moderate position and lost his re-election bid. Whereas Milei has heeded Caputo's advice with aplomb: be yourself and don’t worry about being politically correct. So far, it’s paying off big.
“People always say, ‘Milei should seek to build consensus,’” said political consultant Ana Iparraguirre, a partner at Washington-based political strategy firm GBAO. “But it’s important to understand the government’s strategy isn’t to build a majority, but rather an intense minority, and have the rest of the political spectrum fragmented so they can dominate the agenda.”
Milei has accomplished what no politician ever thought possible in Argentina: he slashed spending on energy subsidies, pensions, government salaries and public works by five percentage points worth of gross domestic product – an unthinkable number almost anywhere, much less Argentina. And his approval rating hovers around 45 percent, according to the latest LatAm Pulse survey conducted by AtlasIntel for Bloomberg News.
Caputo is credited with making that possible – in part for his well-oiled spin machine, and in part for introducing Milei to his economic czar, the elder Caputo.
In a February podcast interview, Luis Caputo recalled how Santiago, his cousin’s son, called him during the first half of 2023, just as Argentina’s presidential race was heating up.
“‘Hey, everyone says we should talk. We’re family and we never talk’,” Luis says Santiago told him. The two met to discuss Argentina’s dire economic situation, and Caputo later arranged a meeting with Milei. Luis credits the rest to celestial forces.
The market celebrated the elder Caputo’s arrival. He was one of their own, and has so far staved off the brusque dollarization it so feared under Milei and brought inflation to a five-year low in May.
‘Not always pretty’
Santiago Caputo also leads a young, savvy social media team that handles the administration’s para-official communication. They’re anonymous troll accounts that essentially amplify any post that boosts Milei – and take down those who don’t.
“Santiago Caputo’s continuous mobilisation of sympathisers is absolutely determinant, even if it’s not always pretty or honourable,” said Andrei Román, AtlasIntel’s chief executive officer.
Just ahead of May 18 City elections, the account @MileiEmperador and a handful of others tied to the communications team shared an AI-generated video of Macri saying his candidate was stepping down to make way for Milei’s candidate. The account – which those with close knowledge say was managed by Caputo – was deleted by the following morning. The video, which was laughed off as an obvious fake by Milei’s officials, is under investigation for electoral fraud by the justice system for misleading voters.
For all his mastery of Milei’s public image, Caputo’s own is a nightmare. The strategist stepped into the public eye in February, when he interrupted a TV interview after the president’s first major scandal. Milei had promoted a memecoin called ‘$Libra’ that cratered hours later, delivering US$250 million in losses, for which the President denies wrongdoing. While an edited version of the interview that was aired went smoothly, Caputo and his signature tattoos show up in the full version that was uploaded to YouTube. In it, Milei fumbles a question about his legal strategy, Caputo steps across the camera to whisper in the president’s ear and the journalist starts the question afresh.
Despite a successful interview, Caputo’s slip-up gave the impression that a government that rails against corruption had something to hide. That night, Caputo offered the President his verbal resignation, which Milei turned down.
Escalating tensions
If the midterms go well for Milei, which most pollsters predict, it could attract foreign investment as the libertarian builds up his razor-thin minority in Congress to pass more substantial reforms.
And so Caputo’s relationship with Karina has become the subject of greater scrutiny, given their differing electoral strategies.
Caputo wants to build alliances with more centrist blocs, like Senator Maximiliano Abad’s Unión Cívica Radical and Macri’s PRO.
On the other end, Karina’s direct reports like Lower House Chamber of Deputies Speaker Martin Menem and his cousin and political organiser Eduardo ‘Lule’ Menem prefer to push forward their own libertarian candidates and aren’t interested in forging other alliances.
When Milei was asked about the tensions during an interview on local TV channel LN+ on June 19, he reiterated that Caputo and his sister form the iron triangle.
“Would you change the winning team?” he asked. “So then, why would you expect me to?”
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by Manuela Tobias, Bloomberg
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