(Bloomberg) -- Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego, a libertarian bitcoin believer who routinely mocks government “cavemen,” is ramping up a dispute with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador over what he alleges is an inflated tax bill and the recent closure of a golf course in Oaxaca. 

Salinas, who has amassed a fortune of $14.9 billion through his retailer Elektra and lender Banco Azteca among other businesses, has been a frequent target of Lopez Obrador during his daily press conferences in recent weeks as his six-year term comes to an end with elections slated for June 2. 

Lopez Obrador’s tax chief said on March 20 that Salinas-owned companies owe 63 billion pesos ($3.8 billion) in taxes including inflation adjustments and fines. The assessment is being disputed in 17 different court cases covering audits from 2008 to 2018, the official said. AMLO, as the president is known, has been successful in getting companies including Wal-Mart de Mexico and Coca-Cola bottler and convenience store operator Fomento Economico Mexicano to pay billions of dollars in tax assessments. 

But Salinas, a sharp-elbowed businessman who clashes with online trolls and foreign bondholders alike, isn’t pulling out his check book.

The details on Salinas’ alleged tax bill came the morning after the billionaire had posted a video on X, where he fought back against AMLO, who had already repeatedly referred more vaguely to a multi-billion dollar set of tax dues. In the video, Salinas mimicked a presidential TV address, with a Mexican flag behind him. He also owns TV Azteca, the second-largest broadcaster.

“I, personally, pay obscene amounts of taxes. My companies do it too,” he said, calling the government’s bid to collect the huge sum extortion. “We are not going to pay more than what is correct.”

He then suggested, without proof, that there was more money being stolen from the president’s cash aid programs for the elderly than what he allegedly owed in taxes. AMLO was using him as a distraction from untamed gang violence and signs of corruption around his government ahead of elections this June. Vote for the “less bad” option, Salinas said. 

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The tax dispute is now before Mexican courts. Lopez Obrador has gone further than before this time in his tax crackdown by making details of the case public, which is illegal under Mexican law, said Carlos Ramirez, a consultant at Mexico City-based Integralia Consultores. 

“You have a president who is on his way out, but he feels very strong, very powerful. And he says no one is going to beat me,” Ramirez said. “And on the other side, you have someone who loves to fight. Unlike the rest of the country’s business elite who have opted to lower their heads, this one is defending himself.”

Grupo Salinas put up a website detailing its defense against the tax assessments, where it says the government is trying to “charge us twice” by not recognizing deductions from losses. 

Meanwhile, the government was moving against Salinas in a separate case that is not directly related to the tax dispute. On March 14, the national guard seized a golf course at a resort in Huatulco near the Pacific Ocean in Oaxaca state after declaring it a nature reserve. Salinas has said he has a valid concession to operate the resort and called the government’s move arbitrary. 

“Since the resentful, evasive, ignorant and arrogant communists convinced the president to close the Huatulco golf course, I’m going to play in Spain, and I’m bringing the caddy so that no one loses their jobs,” he wrote. “The rule of law is an achievement of all Mexicans and we won’t allow” them to ruin it.

Since then, and after showing aerial images of the course quickly withering in the heat, Salinas said a court had temporarily blocked the move. But the Environment Ministry fired back that the court order only protected the ecosystem of the area and did not overturn the designation of the property as a nature reserve. In a statement Wednesday, Grupo Salinas said the government was undermining the rule of law in Mexico by ignoring the court order.

In 2018, AMLO won in a landslide by pledging to end corrupt government favors to the elite. He blamed his two prior failed bids to win the presidency on the “mafia of power,” formed by the country’s top businessmen and corrupt officials — of which he alleged Salinas was a part. 

Despite their differences, Lopez Obrador, 70, tapped Salinas for his council of business advisers. Salinas’ Banco Azteca was also chosen to be among a handful of banks to distribute the president’s new cash aid programs. Yet cracks in their relationship began to emerge when Salinas rejected the government’s initial shut-down of the economy during the pandemic.

Since then, Salinas has evolved into a political foil of Lopez Obrador, espousing libertarian views and gaining social media followers among the president’s detractors. Tio Richie, or Uncle Rich, as fans among his 1.8 million followers on X call him, flaunts his wealth and mocks critics online.

When asked by the news anchor of TV Azteca in a recent interview who he would invite to dinner on his yacht, Salinas named the leaders of El Salvador, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Russia and China.  

Salinas, 67, is a rarity among Mexico’s business elite to openly criticize and confront AMLO. Carlos Slim, Latin America’s wealthiest man, frequently meets with the president at the palace. While mining magnate German Larrea, the country’s second-wealthiest businessman, keeps a hermetic silence even after the president thwarted his bid to buy Citigroup Inc.’s local retail bank and seized part of one of his rail lines.

Salinas has a long track record of using an army of lawyers to win favorable court rulings. Late last week, he threatened to sue officials for revealing private tax information. 

Salinas, meanwhile, is pledging to tour the country to explain his views - echoing the assemblies held by Lopez Obrador across the nation following his first two failed presidential bids.

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