After years of protection and thirty disputes over tax credits, the Supreme Court ruled against him, who will have to pay out around 50,000 million pesos
Ricardo Salinas Pliego lives his darkest days. After the Supreme Court of Justice’s ruling against him this Thursday, November 13, Mexico’s fifth richest man declared that the resolution – which obliges him to pay a debt of almost 50,000 million pesos to the Treasury – was “openly violative of human rights”. Salinas Pliego has had a series of complaints for non-payment to the Tax Administration Service (SAT) for 17 years and the debt, which initially amounted to around 36,000 million pesos, has been growing due to delays in payments, which involve surcharges. The precise amount, however, has not yet been defined and SAT will establish it. President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke about the sentence: “It is not strange that they resolved it this way because it had already been through several cases, some before 2018. It is justice, simply like that.”
The businessman has repeatedly assured that the charges sought by SAT are unjustified and took the case to court, which amounted to nine in the High Court, which settled nine of them. In the last year, Salinas Pliego has combined attacks on the government with proposals for negotiations to pay off his millionaire debts to the treasury, as well as flirting with entering politics.
The president supported the Court’s decision and compared the debt with the resources he will use for the Peace and Justice Plan for Michoacán: “All the welfare programs for Michoacán amount to approximately 30,000 million pesos, they are very significant figures.”
After the protection appeal reform passed by Congress in October 2025, proposed to encircle large debtors, the world’s fifth richest man was left with no options to avoid paying a fixed tax credit.
President Claudia Sheinbaum connected Salinas Pliego with a network of accounts promoting marches held on Saturday, November 15 by young people who identify as part of Generation Z.
On Thursday 13 November, the Supreme Court unanimously ratified the tax credits that the entrepreneur had contested against the SAT in Court, which had ruled against him in all previous instances. The process ended in the High Court with a result that was predictable.
In the last days of October, Salinas Pliego celebrated her 70th birthday and took the opportunity to send a letter to the president in which she accused the revenue agency of not having respected the agreements made with the previous administration regarding her debts.
More than 22,000 people filled the Mexico City Arena, owned by the entrepreneur, to celebrate his 70th birthday on Saturday 25 October. There were attacks on the government – “they are inept who don’t know” -, a circus satire by Morena, who represented with rat bottarga and launched: “Tell us how much we have to pay to be able to pay it off in less than 10 days”.
A federal court revoked, a few days before the mass bathing on his birthday, a precautionary measure that allowed him to avoid paying a debt to creditors in the United States: the initial debt was 400 million dollars, but was increased to 580 million due to delays in payment.
At an intimate celebration a week before the event at the Mexico City Arena, the businessman took further steps in his flirtation with politics. “I think it’s time to take on another challenge, to enter another phase and, why not? It’s time to eliminate the shitty lefties and send them to fuck their mother,” he said as more than 300 guests cheered: “President, president!”
“It owes here, it owes there,” the president said in one of her daily press conferences, referring to the 74 billion pesos that the Mexican public administration is demanding from her in back taxes. Sheinbaum accused the businessman of trying to politicize the tax request.
At the end of September, the Mexican stock exchange suspended trading in the shares of Grupo Elektra, owned by the Mexican millionaire, after its shareholders had decided to delist them from the financial market in December 2024 to return to the private sector.
The president rejected the proposal for an “open, serious and transparent” dialogue table with which the entrepreneur would have tried to reach an agreement on his debts with the Treasury. “These are not blind negotiations,” said the president, who also denied that it was a political issue.
Salinas Pliego avoided prison in Rikers, New York, by paying $25 million toward a million-dollar tax debt that AT&T inherited when it acquired its Iusacell phone network in 2015.
The billionaire entered the political arena after presenting the MAAC, the anti-crime and anti-corruption movement, as Donald Trump’s MAGA in early September. Salinas Pliego’s bet comes at a time when the reduced opposition needs references in view of the 2027 mid-term elections.
An administrative court dealt a new setback to the Mexican tycoon in early July: the Thirteenth Collegiate Court of Administrative Matters denied protection to the television broadcaster TV Azteca, which was challenging the ruling on the dispute arising from tax credits against him for non-payment of the ISR for the tax years 2009, 2010 and 2013.
After five years of litigation and court battles, Grupo Elektra has lost a new battle with the Mexican Treasury. On the eve of this resolution, the controversial businessman tried to stop the ruling by questioning the impartiality of the judges; However, the Court rejected the appeals as they did not provide new elements.
The Mexican tycoon, who believed he was doing business with a representative of the Astor dynasty – which rose to prominence in business, society and politics in the United States and the United Kingdom – agreed to offer $416.3 million in shares of his company Grupo Elektra as collateral for a $113.8 million loan.
The group led by Ricardo Salinas Pliego claimed that these social media users – all identified with the so-called Fourth Transformation – spread “manipulated information” in 2023 in reference to the fact that the financial institution was in bankruptcy, which would have caused the departure of thousands of customers and the loss of 7% of their total deposits.
The Astor Asset Management fund, based in Chicago, published a statement in which it assures that Salinas Pliego has not paid the loan of 110 million dollars nor the related interest. In response, Grupo Salinas sued Astor for fraud.
On March 20, López Obrador announced that Salinas Pliego was owed more than 63 billion pesos in taxes. The then president requested that the evidence relating to the entrepreneur’s deficit be released so that anyone could consult it. It was a way to put pressure on Salinas Pliego, then the third richest man in Mexico.
A group of 120 National Guard members took control of the millionaire businessman’s golf course in Huatulco, Oaxaca. López Obrador defended the National Guard’s decision on the property, which is considered a protected natural area by the federal government.
Judge Lisa G. Beckerman ruled that the involuntary bankruptcy claim against Salinas Pliego’s company should be dismissed because it was a good faith dispute.
In early 2022, the Supreme Court of Justice ordered Grupo Elektra to pay SAT a 15-year-old debt of 2,636 million pesos. The entrepreneur could not talk on X, Twitter of those years, due to a temporary block from which his account suffered.
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