Mexican Billionaire Carlos Slim has taken a financial hammering since Trump rose to political prominence. In dollar terms, at least, nobody has lost more, Bloomberg reports.
By Bloomberg‘s reckoning, the telecom magnate’s personal fortune fell from just below $67 billion on June 15, 2015—the eve of Trump’s presidential bid commencement—to about $51 billion this Wednesday. Where he’d once held pole-position on the Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, he’s now in sixth.
Asset losses are a multi-factored affair and Slim’s personal value actually peaked in October 2014 when he was worth $81 billion—but Trump’s Mexico-bashing has apparently hacked away at the value of his asset base. In 2015, Forbes listed him as the year’s biggest billionaire loser. Although the Peso has rallied in recent weeks, it plummeted through 2016, forcing Mexico to raise interest rates. And when the Peso slumps, so does Slim.
Or so the thinking goes.
But a surprising flip-side to the 77-year-old telecoms tycoon’s monetary losses has been his gain in popularity. When Slim met Trump in Mar-a-Lago for, what the latter described as “a lovely dinner with a wonderful man” last December, many Mexicans were impressed. A poll conducted by El Universal the following month reportedly showed Slim pipping populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador as the Mexican considered best-suited to face Trump.
For more on Trump’s relationship with Mexico, watch Coins2Day’s video:
According to Bloomberg, it’s not only Slim’s defiance of Trump but his calls for greater economic self-reliance that have appealed to Mexicans. A price war and regulatory crackdown pushing down cell phone bills might have helped too.
