Milei to meet with Musk and Zuckerberg ahead of Bukele’s inauguration

The Argentine president has made no secret of his desire to strengthen ties with Silicon Valley and the international right

President Javier Milei will travel to San Francisco this week before attending the inauguration of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in San Salvador on June 1. There, he will meet with SpaceX and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, along with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It will be Milei’s fourth trip to the United States since assuming office and his second encounter with Musk this month.

A presidential committee will depart for California on Tuesday night. Milei aims to draw investment from Silicon Valley and further the development of artificial intelligence in Argentina. The Argentine president also plans to meet with representatives from Open AI, Apple, and Google Alphabet, among other industry representatives. 

Milei previously signaled that he would be making the trip when he endorsed a tweet from a popular libertarian account confirming separate sitdowns with Zuckerberg and Musk. He is not currently scheduled to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden or officials from his administration.

In April, Milei met with Musk at the latter’s Tesla factory in Austin, Texas, where the pair agreed to organize a “large event” in Argentina to “promote the ideas of liberty.” A date for the event has not been set. Milei thanked Musk for “everything he’s doing in the world,” and the latter called for investment in Argentina on X following a global investors conference in Los Angeles from May 5 to 8.

Musk praised Milei after the libertarian firebrand defeated then-Economy Minister Sergio Massa in November’s runoff election, claiming “prosperity is ahead for Argentina.” According to Milei, Musk has also expressed interest in mining the country’s lithium reserves.

Bukele, who was reelected as president of El Salvador in February with 85% of the vote, was not present for Milei’s inauguration in December, instead sending his minister of justice and public security, Héctor Villatoro. Milei has signaled a desire to create a massive private prison system similar to the Central American nation’s. Both presidents attended this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference — an annual gathering of right-wing leaders in Washington, D.C.

From June 13 to 15, Milei will travel to Borgo Egnazia, Italy, to attend a summit of G-7 nations: Germany, Japan, Canada, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He will subsequently journey to Madrid, where the Juan de Mariana Institute will honor him as part of the institution’s Freedom Week, and then to Hamburg, where he will receive a Hayek medal named for Nobel Prize winner Frederick von Hayek. That ceremony will take place on June 22.

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