Carlos Slim: The Power, Money and Morality of One of the World's Richest Men

The 1990 Telmex privatisation under Salinas

In 1990, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's government sold control of the state phone company Teléfonos de México to a consortium led by Carlos Slim's Grupo Carso, partnered with Southwestern Bell and France Télécom, for roughly $1.7 billion. The terms protected the buyer: rate increases were allowed before the sale, and Telmex kept an exclusive long-distance concession for years afterward. Slim's closeness to the Salinas circle made the deal the founding episode of his fortune and the standing question about how it was made.

Telmex's protected dominance and its cost

Osorno presents Telmex's market dominance after privatisation as something Slim inherited and defended, not something competition produced, and he treats that protection as one source of the fortune alongside Slim's real business ability. The cost fell on Mexican consumers through high telecom prices, which the OECD in 2012 estimated at about $129 billion to the economy between 2005 and 2009.