“I can’t help but be provoked, despite everything I understand Milei to be, that she faced Magnetto. For whatever reason, it seems meritorious, very meritorious. Everyone has gone to their knees for Magnetto. At least Milei, no matter how crazy he is or whatever, is allowed to stand in front of Magnetto,” he highlighted. Victor Hugo Morales in dialogue with Futurock.
The journalist close to Kirchnerism praised the libertarian president’s position of stopping the Clarín Group when trying to establish a monopoly in telecommunications services, after the sale of Telefónica Argentina. “Nothing about Milei is genuine. Nothing corresponds to coordinates, in which the algorithm gives you the corresponding result,” warned the Uruguayan and closed: “It is very good that the President of the Republic, if you open Twitter, has as his first expression that Clarín is a mafia. Which is true.”
The current confrontation between Javier Milei and the media conglomerate, headed by Hector Magnettoconstitutes a dispute after the purchase operation of the Argentine subsidiary of Telefónica by Telecom Argentina, linked to the Clarín Group. In February 2025, the sale was announced for approximately $1,245 million. The government reacted harshly, warning that the operation will be subject to the scrutiny of the telecommunications regulator Ente Nacional de Comunicaciones (ENACOM) and the National Commission for the Defense of Competition (CNDC) under antitrust regulations. According to estimates, the merger could leave the corporation with 70% of the market in different branches.
Hector Magnetto For decades, he has been the central figure of Grupo Clarín, the largest media company in the country. The public accountant graduated from the University of La Plata, joined the newspaper in 1972, and later became executive director of the company. Since his management, the newspaper diversified into radio, open and cable television, internet and telecommunications, becoming a multimedia emporium. In her X social network account, Milei has described Grupo Clarín as “the great Argentine scam.”
According to different sources, the president indicated that Clarín is seeking “to make him give in to handing over Argentina’s communications” in reference to the concentration in telecommunications and, at the time, he accused Magnetto of favoring the 2002 devaluation during the presidency of Eduardo Duhalde to liquidate the group’s debts, which deepened the presidential hostility. Since the signing, statements have been made that the national government exerts a “rude attitude of pressure on the Judiciary” as part of this dispute.
The libertarian administration reacted with preventive measures: on March 21, 2025, the suspension of the operation due to concentration risk was announced. Telefónica-Telecom would have greatly exceeded the limits of radio spectrum and market share, which poses the threat of a “dominant position” or monopoly, and therefore the government warned that it will apply antitrust regulations and review licenses. This confrontation refers to another historical moment of tension between the State and the media group, such as the so-called “media law” during the presidency of Cristina Kirchner.
Within the current legal dispute, the purchase operation has not yet been definitively approved without conditions and remains under regulatory analysis. This confrontation can be read as a clash between two forms of power in Argentina: on the one hand, the media-economic power structured in groups like Clarín that have accumulated economic, political and informational presence; on the other, a government that presents itself as disruptive and anti-statist but that, at the same time, applies regulatory tools to stop what it identifies as concentrations of power.
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