During the first week of government, while they were talking in the presidential office, Javier Milei decided to give Santiago Caputo a fictitious but no less important position. “You are going to be my Minister of Thought,” she told him while looking him in the eyes and taking him by both shoulders.
ACPuto is, along with Karina Milei, the new President’s most trusted person. He came to it with the help of the former candidate for head of the Buenos Aires Government Ramiro Marra, and from that moment on they became inseparable. Today he is the one who writes the presidential speeches and has the mission of guarding the identity of the La Libertad Avanza project, and he was also given the responsibility of monitoring the communication areas of the entire Government. He is the firewall to the advance of Macrism and also one of Milei’s most loyal soldiers.to the point that before the PASO he had promised that, if the libertarian came out first in the primaries, he would get a tattoo on his entire back the work “The Gray Man”, by the Argentine Nostradamus Benjamín Solari Parravicini. On Tuesday, August 15, he kept his promise while taking a few sips of Johnnie Walker Black Label whiskey from a plastic cup. The Buenos Aires deputy Agustín Romo shared the photo on his Twitter account.
At the close of this edition, Caputo did not yet have a formal appointment, but his official position was expected to be “presidential advisor on Strategic Affairs.” This figure is perhaps the one that best describes the task of this 38-year-old man who, as the President himself said, enjoys staying “in the shadows,” although, behind that supposedly low profile, he lets the grimace of a smile shine through. that exposes an enjoyment when he hears the rumors that revolve around him. In the red circle they wonder who Caputo ishow he thinks and what role he has at the small table of the new power.
Jobs.
Caputo’s main role is to take care of the project’s identity. The counselor has the mission of preventing Milei from being seen as a traditional politician and continuing on the path of a reformist president. whose compass is the popular mandate to “rebuild Argentina,” as he said in his inauguration speech, and not deviate from the shock adjustment that he is already implementing.
On Tuesday, December 19, he stayed until 11:30 p.m. at the Casa Rosada, in the office of the Media Secretariat, writing on his personal laptop the speech that Milei gave on national television the next day.. There they talked about the reforms that the State needs, the Decree of Necessity and Urgency for deregulation of the State was announced, it was announced that extraordinary sessions will be called in Congress and again progress was made on the idea of adjustment. This point is perhaps the most innovative of Milei’s government, because his rise to power was accompanied by the mandate to reduce expenses and free up prices and is one of the most important crusades of the first weeks of his administration. Even from the ruling party they slip that in underground conversations with the opposition, everyone encourages the President to take the necessary measures to put the economy in order. At some point, everyone is aligned in interests, because the opposition disagrees with the adjustment to its electorate. and Milei takes the measures that are in line with his ideas, without appearing together in front of society. It’s a win-win, from which Milei believes she has more to gain than lose. “Politics wants Javier to do the dirty work of adjustment,” Caputo translates privately. And he assures that the President has internalized that role.
One of the main ideas that Caputo usually repeats in his analyzes is that Milei’s victory represents the end of the “Alfonsinista consensus”, that classic idea of building politics through agreements, and that it is even positive to give in to some negotiations in pursuit of a greater good. Behind this concept prevails the idea that Raúl Alfonsín, Carlos Menem, Fernando De la Rúa, Eduardo Duhalde, Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, Mauricio Macri and Alberto Fernández are part of a generation of old-fashioned politicians whose ultimate goal, even if they had episodes of confrontation, was to achieve consensus. Milei, on the contrary, would not seek consensus, but would advance strongly with the ideas he presented in the campaign and that voters chose as something different from the traditional offer. An example of society’s rejection of a candidate who offered slogans about consensus was Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, who fell by the wayside in the PASO.
At this point, Caputo is similar to the two most important people that Mauricio Macri had during his presidency: Marcos Peña and Jaime Durán Barba. Both proclaimed the idea of moving forward with reforms and avoiding the “politics” of dialogue and negotiation. The DNU of the deregulation of the State, added to the omnibus law that they seek to sanction before the end of the year, goes along those lines. In Caputo’s conversations with the President, the idea that, If the major surgery they intend to apply to the State goes wrong, they will have a brief stint in the Government, but they will leave with the satisfaction of having been faithful to their ideas and not compromising with “the caste.” as they call political leaders. But if it goes well, they could dream of re-election. “There begins a dynasty,” they lick their lips.
The first gesture along these lines was to give his inauguration speech on the street in front of the Plaza de los dos Congresos and not before the Legislative Assembly. This general pose of relying on popular legitimation and not on political dialogue is perhaps the heart of the counselor’s thinking.
Nuances.
Still, the President and his top advisor are not always on the same page. Caputo doesn’t like that Milei has a constant public appearance or that her voice is heard too much. His advice aims to build a more solid and omnipresent presidential figure. Something more like an emperor than a president. The image of Milei monitoring the demonstration against him at the headquarters of the Federal Police headed by the Polo Obrero sought to generate that image of Big Brother that sees everything.
Caputo is also not friends with all of Milei’s friends. He does not sympathize with Federico Sturzenegger: considers that his DNU project with the reforms had more defects than virtues and an example of this was that the vast majority of the articles had to be rewritten because in many cases they left the door open to a wave of trials and protections in the contentious administrative jurisdiction. .
Another friend from Milei with whom Caputo does not get along is Mauricio Macri. He believes that the people of Boca do not, deep down, want the libertarian to have a good presidency. Rather, he sees him as someone who seeks to control power all the time and sometimes even with a perverse game. He was even heard complaining that Milei was exposed in front of a crowd when he went to vote in the Boca elections, while Macri was in the United Arab Emirates. According to Caputo, Macri encouraged Milei to go vote, although he preserved himself.
These differences are not matters of substance, but rather of personal sympathy. For Milei, Caputo is an essential person in his daily routine and he even considers him the “architect” of the electoral victory. “I want to thank that giant, who has accompanied me throughout this entire process. That giant who is usually kept in the dark, who is called Santiago Caputo and is the true architect alongside ‘the boss,’” said Milei when she began to thank those who accompanied him in the campaign. “The boss,” it is known, is sister Karina.
History.
Caputo met Milei through his friend Ramiro Marra, with whom he attended high school at the Manuel Belgrano School in the City of Buenos Aires. His last name is linked to politics because he is a distant relative of Nicolás “Nicky” Caputo and Luis “Toto” Caputo, Macri’s “bosom friend” and his former Minister of Finance, respectively. The last one, today in charge of the Economy portfolio with Milei, was approached by him, who is his nephew. Santiago’s father was Claudio, a notary who was president of the College of Notaries and died this year. By that time, he had already established a strong relationship with Milei, with whom he constantly interacted and participated in crucial meetings. Milei’s affection was so deep that on the day of her father’s death she suspended all her campaign activities to provide personal support at home. In those months, Caputo’s life was a whirlwind: he had lost his father, he was working on a presidential campaign and his wife was expecting their second child, born days before the first round of elections last October.
At 14 yearsCaputo left the Manuel Belgrano School to continue his studies at Esquiú, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Belgrano. At 16, due to behavioral and academic performance problems, he had to change schools again, but he maintained his friendship with former classmates at Manuel Belgrano, who years later would connect him with Milei. In addition to Marra, he is also a friend of Eugenio Casielles, a Buenos Aires legislator who did not participate in the celebrations due to his bad relationship with Karina Milei, who also displaced Marra.
Caputo studied Computer Engineering for three years at the National Defense University, interested in joining the former SIDE to develop technology for espionage. However, after discovering the daily reality of a spy’s job, he realized that he was not as romantic as he imagined. He changed his focus and switched to Political Science at the University of Buenos Aires.
Through personal connections, met Jaime Durán Barba and began to collaborate in the Ecuadorian teams. There he met Santiago Nieto and Roberto Zapata, prominent associates of the former PRO guru, specialized in public opinion. The intensity and passion of the work led him to abandon his degree just four subjects after graduating, to dedicate himself completely to political consulting through the Move Group consulting firm, together with Rodrigo Lugones, Guillermo Garat and Tomás Vidal. Today everyone works for the government of La Libertad Avanza. Also in that group was Diego “Derek” Hampton, Patricia Bullrich’s advisor.
Before working for Milei, Caputo advised candidates, governments and companies in different countries, including Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and El Salvador. He also collaborated with the radical Santa Cruz leader Eduardo Costa. In the consultancy they had a custom: any member who traveled abroad had to return with a bottle of whiskey from anywhere in the world. Caputo made his contributions.
Ink.
The young advisor is passionate about tattoos. In addition to the Caputo family crest and the aforementioned work “The Gray Man,” his body is decorated with Russian tattoos, taken from the book “Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia” that a friend gave him. This work, divided into three volumes of red, blue and violet, is based on photographs of Russian mafia prisoners, along with explanations of each tattoo. On his right arm, Caputo has an anti-communist proclamation tattooed in Russian that reads: “A cabin, a country house and a savings bank, a boat, a car and a garage will calm my whim”. This revelation last September generated controversy and was mentioned in Russian media. Something that worries the presidential advisor, since he understands that his tattoos could offend someone.
He can no longer walk calmly through the streets. It is likely that a person over 60 years of age will not recognize it because it rarely appears on television, but any teenager or adult saw it during the last two weeks on Instagram, Twitter or TikTok, going viral in hundreds of videos that add up to millions of views. With a tough look and always with a cigarette in his mouth, he was dubbed on social media as a kind of Peaky Blinder from the River Plate, in reference to the Netflix series. about a family gang of gangsters in early 20th century England.
Until a few years ago, Caputo was a public opinion consultant who made a living watching focus group work. But today he reached the highest point for any political advisor: helping a person become president and accompanying him in his administration. He is the man most wanted by businessmen, politicians and those in power. Everyone wants to talk and know who Milei’s “Minister of Thought” is.
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