# Javier Milei, the man who wants to hand companies over to AI

> Introduction: the Argentine president's most radical bet

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Profile
- Published: 2026-07-04
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/javier-milei-lhomme-qui-veut-donner-des-entreprises-a-lintelligence-artificielle

## Introduction: the Argentine president's most radical bet

### An announcement that shook the legal world

Argentine **president** **Javier Milei** submitted to **Congress**, on **May 29, 2026**, a bill aimed at creating a new **legal** category called an **"automated company,"** a business that could operate entirely under the direction of algorithmic systems or **artificial intelligence** agents, without needing employees for its daily operations. This **reform**, unveiled in early July **2026** as part of a complete overhaul of Argentina's **corporate law** dating back to 1972, would make **Argentina** the first country in the world to explicitly legislate on this type of entity.

In an op-ed published on **June 4, 2026** in the **Financial Times**, co-signed with his Deregulation Minister **Federico Sturzenegger**, **Milei** compared this initiative to the creation of the Dutch East India Company in 1602, a pioneer of limited **liability**, saying he wants to avoid premature and poorly understood rules from slowing the development of **artificial intelligence**.

### A man used to upending conventions

This bill continues in the same vein as **Milei's** political style since taking office in December 2023: a self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist with no prior executive experience, who has already carried out one of the most radical fiscal adjustments in modern Argentine history, eliminating the fiscal deficit and bringing **inflation** down from triple-digit levels to around 33% in **2026**.

This new initiative on **artificial intelligence** confirms that the Argentine **president** has no intention of slowing his **deregulation** agenda, even when it ventures into completely uncharted legal territory that worries even some of the world's leading technology thinkers.

*Whether or not one supports **Milei's** libertarian vision, one has to acknowledge that he dares where most Western leaders settle for study commissions. This boldness, risky as it is, deserves to be examined seriously rather than dismissed with a wave of the hand.*

## What the bill actually contains

### Human oversight remains mandatory after all

Contrary to the spectacular image conveyed by the initial announcements, a detailed analysis of the text by Argentine corporate lawyers reveals a more nuanced reality: the **"automated company"** proposed by the **reform** will still be required to have a human administrator responsible for overseeing its operations, according to a **Reuters** investigation published on **July 3, 2026**. The bill does allow a company's management to use **artificial intelligence** for decision-making, but it never exempts human administrators from their duty to oversee the outcomes.

This oversight requirement is a fundamental legal safeguard that considerably tempers **Milei's** initial rhetoric, according to which **artificial intelligence** agents could **"exercise independent judgment in unpredictable environments"** without direct human intervention.

### Liability remains at the heart of the framework

The text explicitly states that the company remains liable for damages caused by **artificial intelligence** or its algorithmic systems, a **liability** clause confirmed by several Argentine law firms consulted by the international business press. Article 14 of the bill defines the **automated company** as an entity that carries out its corporate purpose through autonomous algorithmic systems, without relying on salaried workers for its ordinary operations.

Under this provision, the **automated company** is liable with its own assets to third parties for damages caused by its autonomous systems, which preserves the classic logic of **corporate law**: it is the company, not the algorithm itself, that ultimately remains legally responsible.

*This **liability** clause changes the entire media narrative built around this law. It's a far cry from the apocalyptic scenario of an AI totally free of human constraint, even though plenty of gray areas remain in practice.*

## The intellectual origins of the reform

### A direct response to an American court ruling

In his **Financial Times** op-ed, **Milei** explicitly criticized the precedent set by the American ruling **Sarcuni v. bZx DAO**, which treated a decentralized autonomous organization as a mere general partnership, thereby depriving its members of the limited **liability** status normally enjoyed by shareholders of a traditional corporation. The Argentine **president** interpreted this ruling as an arbitrary **legal** obstacle to the inevitable rise of AI-assisted corporate governance.

This direct reference to American case law illustrates the Argentine **government's** desire to position itself as a global regulatory pioneer, capitalizing on an international **legal** vacuum to attract capital and tech companies that other, more cautious jurisdictions are still hesitant to welcome.

### A Deregulation Minister on the front line

**Federico Sturzenegger**, nicknamed the chainsaw minister for his role in eliminating hundreds of regulations since 2023, is personally shepherding this bill through the Argentine **Congress**. His stated goal is to remove the state as much as possible from the space between private actors, a philosophy that finds its most radical expression yet in automated companies.

This ultra-liberal approach, consistent with **Milei's** entire economic program since taking office, reflects a constant ideological conviction: the less the state intervenes in the economy, the more freely growth and innovation can flourish, even in areas as sensitive as the **algorithmic** governance of companies.

*The choice of **Sturzenegger** to carry this bill is no accident. It's the logical continuation of a philosophy of total **deregulation**, whose social costs will one day need to be measured alongside the economic benefits its defenders tout.*

## International experts' concerns

### Yuval Noah Harari sounds the alarm

Historian and essayist **Yuval Noah Harari** publicly reacted to **Milei's** announcement, warning that this category of non-human company could generate considerable wealth while granting artificial intelligence systems a universal key to the world's financial, economic, and political systems. This warning, widely shared on social media, fueled an intense international debate over the structural risks of such a **legal** innovation.

An Argentine artificial intelligence specialist quoted in the local press described the combination of non-human companies and total **deregulation** as **"programmed impunity,"** where the gains go to humans, the social damage to the community, and **liability** dissolves into the machinery of the systems themselves.

### The question of ultimate liability remains open

Despite the **liability** clauses written into the text, several legal analysts point out that knowing the name of an **automated company's** ultimate beneficiary tells you nothing about who will actually answer when that company causes real harm to third parties. This persistent gray area, in their view, is the most serious structural weakness of the entire Argentine bill.

This criticism echoes a broader concern voiced by legal scholars worldwide: limited liability traditionally works because a human being always stands behind the company, a fundamental principle that **algorithmic** dilution of decision-making could progressively erode.

***Harari's** warnings are not technophobic paranoia. A system that lets you profit without ever truly answering for your actions is a classic recipe for irresponsibility on a massive scale, regardless of which country experiments with it first.*

## Argentina's economic context under Milei

### Undeniable macroeconomic results

Since taking office, **Javier Milei** has maintained a primary budget surplus for twenty-eight consecutive months, the longest sustained surplus streak in modern Argentine economic history, according to independent economic analyses. **Inflation**, which once exceeded triple digits annually, stood at around 33% in February **2026**, a dramatic drop even though the country's monetary stability remains fragile according to several international financial observers.

The Large Investment Incentive Regime, known by the acronym **RIGI**, attracted around 30 billion dollars in announced **investments** by early **2026**, mainly in the energy and mining sectors, momentum that **Milei** now hopes to extend to the technology and artificial intelligence sector through this new **legal** framework.

### A controversial but adopted labor reform

In February **2026**, the Argentine Senate approved a major labor **reform**, amending nearly 200 articles of the employment contracts law, including a possible extension of the workday from eight to twelve hours and new restrictions on the right to strike. This **reform**, passed after thirteen hours of intense debate, sparked fresh protests against the **government's** austerity measures, but it nonetheless strengthened **Milei's** legislative position for the rest of his term.

This accumulation of radical economic reforms, of which legalizing automated companies is the most recent **technological** extension, paints the portrait of a leader determined to turn **Argentina** into the freest economy in the world, even if it means venturing into legal territory with absolutely no precedent.

*It would be dishonest to deny the macroeconomic results **Milei** has achieved, even though their social cost remains fiercely debated. But turning those successes into a blank check to legislate on artificial intelligence without a safety net is a bet that could go very badly wrong.*

## The geopolitical strategy of technological competition

### Attracting capital that Washington cannot capture

This Argentine legislation is part of a broader international strategy to compete for artificial intelligence **investments**, at a time when the United States itself is struggling to pass a coherent regulatory framework for the most advanced tech companies. By proposing a regime that combines no regulation on artificial intelligence, a new company category, and a reduced corporate tax rate, **Argentina** is explicitly trying to become a haven for global tech capital.

This regulatory competition approach, which some commentators call a race to the bottom, illustrates a broader geopolitical reality: in the absence of international coordination on artificial intelligence governance, each jurisdiction has considerable room to set its own rules, with potentially global consequences.

### A stake that goes far beyond Argentina

For the **West**, which must remain at the **technological** forefront against **China's** ambitions in artificial intelligence, this Argentine initiative raises a fundamental strategic question: should a race to **deregulation** among Western democracies be encouraged, at the risk of repeating mistakes made in other sectors due to a lack of prior international coordination.

A representative of the Argentine presidential spokesperson's office nonetheless clarified that no company or concrete investment commitment is currently tied directly to this bill, suggesting the initiative remains, for now, more of a political and symbolic signal than an immediate, measurable economic transformation.

*This global race to attract artificial intelligence capital without a common regulatory safety net deeply worries me. The **West** should compete with **China** through responsible innovation, not through **deregulation** that could backfire on its own democracies.*

## Precedents and the absence of an international framework

### A global legal vacuum that Argentina is the first to occupy

According to several international legal experts cited by the specialized press, no other country had previously attempted to create a specific legal category for companies entirely run by artificial intelligence, making this Argentine **reform** a global legal experiment being closely watched by governments and tech investors worldwide.

This world first puts **Argentina** in a paradoxical position: a country historically marked by economic instability and debt crises suddenly becomes the planet's most advanced regulatory laboratory for one of the decade's most contested technological issues.

### Decentralized autonomous organizations are also covered

The Argentine bill also recognizes **DAO**-type entities (decentralized autonomous organizations), which record their operations on a blockchain, considerably widening the scope of this **reform** beyond companies run solely by traditional artificial intelligence. This dual legal recognition, for both automated companies and **DAOs**, positions **Argentina** as a potential hub for the entire ecosystem of decentralized and algorithmic technologies.

This two-pronged regulatory ambition illustrates the Argentine **government's** desire not merely to follow global technology trends, but to actively get ahead of them by creating the legal framework that **Milei** hopes will become the international reference for this type of company.

*Being first in the world always carries a risk: becoming the textbook case for mistakes that other countries will later avoid thanks to lessons drawn from the Argentine experience. **Milei** seems ready to accept the role of the world's regulatory guinea pig.*

## Argentina's internal debate over this reform

### Corporate lawyers more measured than the political rhetoric

Contrary to the sometimes spectacular rhetoric **Milei** himself uses in his public appearances, Argentine corporate lawyers consulted by international media stress the ultimately measured nature of the proposed reform, which preserves classic legal liability mechanisms rather than creating a total accountability vacuum, as some international headlines initially suggested.

This gap between the presidential rhetoric, focused on a radical break with traditional economic models, and the more cautious technical analysis of legal professionals, illustrates a recurring dynamic of **Milei's** term: spectacular announcements followed by more nuanced legislative implementation than initially expected.

### Political opposition remains marginal on this specific file

Unlike other reforms by the Argentine **government**, notably on labor law, which sparked major protests, the bill on automated companies has not so far generated comparable popular mobilization, with the topic's technical complexity likely limiting its ability to mobilize Argentine public opinion for now.

This relative lack of popular pushback does not, however, mean unanimous support: the debate is unfolding mainly in specialized legal, academic, and technology circles, far from the media spotlight that usually accompanies the Argentine **president's** most controversial initiatives.

*The relative silence of the Argentine street on this file should not be mistaken for consensus. It's more a sign of a topic too technical to mobilize people immediately, which makes the vigilance of independent legal experts all the more essential.*

## What this reform means for the future of capitalism

### A possible redefinition of the very notion of a company

If adopted, this Argentine reform could fundamentally redefine what it means to run a company in the twenty-first century, explicitly separating, for the first time, operational decision-making, entrusted to algorithmic systems, from ultimate legal liability, which remains attached to identified natural persons acting as legal representatives.

This structural separation between decision-making and liability may be the most significant legal innovation of this reform, far beyond the simple question of whether an artificial intelligence can technically run a company without daily human intervention.

### A precedent other democracies are watching closely

Several Western jurisdictions, including certain American states and European countries, are closely following the Argentine experience to assess whether elements of this approach could be adapted to their own legal frameworks, without necessarily replicating the scale of deregulation proposed by **Milei** and his **government**.

This close international observation confirms that **Argentina**, despite its turbulent economic history, could exert disproportionate influence on the future evolution of **corporate law** worldwide, simply by daring to legislate where other countries are still cautiously hesitating.

*The ultimate irony of this story is that a country long associated with economic instability could end up writing the rules that far more stable and cautious economies will later follow. Boldness sometimes has unexpected geopolitical rewards.*

## The personal profile of an unconventional president

### From telegenic economist to disruptive head of state

**Javier Milei**, an economist by training who became a media figure before entering politics, has always presented himself as an avowed anarcho-capitalist, a rare ideological label among sitting heads of state in the contemporary Western world. His direct, sometimes provocative communication style, and his symbolic use of a chainsaw to illustrate his budget-cutting policy, have helped forge a singular international image, somewhere between libertarian fervor and self-proclaimed economic pragmatism.

His 2023 election victory, achieved with no prior executive experience, initially raised considerable skepticism about his ability to effectively govern a country facing a deep economic crisis, skepticism that his subsequent macroeconomic results have partly, but not entirely, dispelled.

### A term that keeps defying predictions

His strengthened victory in the October 2025 midterm elections gave him additional legislative momentum to pursue his structural reform agenda, including this automated companies initiative, which, regardless of its final legislative outcome, will likely remain one of the boldest and most discussed markers of his presidency.

It remains to be seen whether history will remember **Milei** as the **president** who successfully anticipated an inevitable economic transformation, or as the one who, out of excessive ideological confidence, opened a legal breach whose consequences will reach far beyond Argentina's borders.

***Milei** embodies a rare type of leader: one for whom ideology and concrete governance seem to form a coherent whole rather than two separate spheres. Whether or not one agrees with his vision, one has to acknowledge the rare consistency of his political trajectory.*

## The structural limits of the historical comparison

### The East India Company, a parallel that needs qualifying

The comparison **Milei** draws between his reform and the creation of the Dutch East India Company in 1602 deserves some qualification: the latter did indeed invent modern limited liability, but it remained run by identifiable human beings, unlike the **algorithmic** delegation of decision-making proposed by the current Argentine reform.

This fundamental difference between the two legal innovations, separated by more than four centuries, illustrates the limits of a historical analogy that is rhetorically appealing but potentially misleading in terms of the real practical implications for liability and corporate governance.

### An innovation with no proven safety net

Unlike classic limited liability, whose mechanisms have been tested and refined over centuries of case law around the world, the Argentine **automated company** has no judicial track record to help precisely anticipate how courts will handle complex disputes involving decisions made by autonomous algorithmic systems.

This absence of judicial precedent is, according to several international legal scholars, the main source of uncertainty surrounding this reform, far more so than the more abstract philosophical questions about the nature of **algorithmic** liability itself.

*Comparing his reform to a four-century-old innovation is rhetorically clever, but it does not replace the decades of case law that this new Argentine legal framework sorely lacks.*

## Possible consequences for Argentine workers

### Automation that could accelerate job losses

Beyond strictly legal questions, this reform raises a direct social concern: by explicitly allowing companies to operate without employees for their ordinary operations, Argentine legislation could accelerate an automation trend already worrying Argentine workers, in a country where the poverty rate remains high despite recent macroeconomic improvements.

This social dimension of the reform remains largely absent from the international debate, which is focused on questions of legal liability and **algorithmic** governance, even though it could have concrete and immediate repercussions on the Argentine labor market in the years ahead.

### A government betting on overall growth rather than sectoral protection

The **Milei** **government** defends this approach by betting that attracting new technology **investments** will, over time, largely offset any job losses in traditional sectors, an economic thesis that has yet to be empirically demonstrated in Argentina's specific context.

This approach, consistent with **Milei's** overall liberal philosophy since taking office, reflects a long-term economic bet whose real benefits and costs for the Argentine population can only be fully assessed years from now, once the reform is eventually adopted and concretely implemented.

*Betting on hypothetical future growth to justify immediate social risks is a classic gamble of radical liberal reforms. History will judge whether this Argentine bet was truly worth it for the country's most vulnerable workers.*

## The symbolic weight for the West-China competition

### A card Argentina can play in the great global tech game

Amid growing **technological** rivalry between the **West** and **China** for artificial intelligence dominance, this Argentine initiative, modest as it may be in terms of concrete **investments** for now, sends a clear political signal: some Western democracies are willing to experiment with radically new legal frameworks to attract global tech capital and talent.

This regulatory competition dynamic, if it spreads to other Western countries, could constitute a collective advantage against the technological ambitions of **China**, **Russia**, and **Iran**, provided this race for legal innovation does not turn into uncontrolled deregulation with unpredictable social and economic consequences.

### A delicate balance between boldness and caution

The real challenge for the **West** is finding a balance between the regulatory boldness needed to stay technologically competitive and the caution required to avoid repeating, at the scale of **algorithmic** corporate governance, the financial deregulation mistakes that preceded some of the most severe economic crises in contemporary history.

The Argentine experience, whatever its outcome, will likely serve as an essential case study for this delicate balance between innovation and accountability, a lesson the entire Western world could draw on in its own **technological** race against its strategic rivals.

*It takes boldness to compete with **China** technologically, but boldness without solid safeguards can backfire on the **West** itself. **Milei's** **Argentina** may be testing, without quite meaning to, the limits of that balance for all of us.*

## The fiscal dimension and the appeal to global investors

### A reduced tax rate as a selling point

Beyond the innovative legal framework, the **Milei** government is also betting on a reduced corporate tax rate to make **Argentina** attractive against other established tech jurisdictions such as the United States, Singapore, or Ireland, which already offer competitive tax regimes for international tech companies. This tax strategy, combined with the new legal category of automated companies, forms a coherent package designed to position **Buenos Aires** as a top destination for global tech capital.

This three-pillar approach, combining the absence of specific artificial intelligence regulation, a new company category, and favorable taxation, reflects a coherent overall economic strategy rather than a simple isolated measure, even though its actual effectiveness at attracting concrete **investments** remains to be demonstrated in the coming months.

### The RIGI program as a reference model

The relative success of the Large Investment Incentive Regime, which has already attracted around 30 billion dollars into the energy and mining sectors, explicitly serves as a model for this new **technological** initiative, with the government hoping to replicate in the artificial intelligence sector the same kind of foreign capital attraction dynamic seen in Argentine natural resources.

It remains to be seen whether global tech investors, often more cautious about legal uncertainty than investors in physical natural resources, will respond with the same enthusiasm to this Argentine invitation to experiment with an entirely unprecedented legal framework.

*Selling **Argentina** as the new global tax and legal haven for artificial intelligence is a bold bet, but tech capital usually demands more legal certainty than this unprecedented reform can currently guarantee.*

## Conclusion: a bet that goes far beyond Argentina

### A technical reform with deep philosophical implications

At the end of this analysis, the reform championed by **Javier Milei** appears both less radical than its initial media presentation suggested, thanks to the preservation of mandatory **human oversight** and classic liability mechanisms, and more significant symbolically than a mere technical modernization of Argentine **corporate law** dating back more than half a century.

This dual nature of the reform, both cautious in its legal details and bold in its stated ambition, fairly well sums up **Milei's** governing style since taking office: spectacular announcements that, once translated into actual legal text, reveal nuances that the international public debate has sometimes been too quick to overlook.

### A precedent to watch closely for the Western future

Whether this law is ultimately adopted in its current form or considerably amended by the Argentine **Congress**, it will already have achieved the essence of its political goal: positioning **Argentina** and its **president** as unavoidable players in the global debate on the future of corporate governance in the age of artificial intelligence.

For the **West** as a whole, engaged in an existential **technological** competition with **China**, this Argentine experiment deserves to be followed with critical attention, neither rejected out of ideological principle, nor blindly embraced without the liability safeguards that ultimately protect ordinary citizens from the potential excesses of systems no human being controls directly on a daily basis anymore.

*Whether **Milei** is one day remembered as a visionary or as a legal sorcerer's apprentice, one thing is certain: his Argentine bet has forced the rest of the world to finally ask the right questions about corporate governance in the age of artificial intelligence.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Reuters — Argentina's plan for AI-run companies can't avoid humans, July 3, 2026](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentinas-plan-ai-run-companies-cant-avoid-humans-2026-07-03/)

- [Vilá Abogados — Corporations run by artificial intelligence, the Argentinian initiative, June 19, 2026](https://vila.es/en/technology/corporations-run-by-artificial-intelligence-the-argentinian-initiative/)

- [Forbes — Argentina wants to let AI own companies, June 10, 2026](https://www.forbes.com/sites/anishasircar/2026/06/10/ai-owned-companies-argentina/)

### Secondary sources

- [The Rio Times — Argentina economy 2026, growth and inflation, April 2, 2026](https://www.riotimesonline.com/argentina-economy-2026-guide/)

- [Al Jazeera — Argentina Senate approves contentious Milei-backed labour reforms, February 28, 2026](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/28/argentina-senate-approves-contentious-milei-backed-labour-reforms)

- [Chatham House — Can Argentina's Javier Milei evolve from disruptor to political leader, June 15, 2026](https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/06/can-argentinas-javier-milei-evolve-disruptor-political-leader)

- [Unfiltered Ledger — Argentina built the AI law the US couldn't pass, June 14, 2026](https://www.unfilteredledger.com/argentina-built-the-ai-law-the-us-couldnt-pass/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/javier-milei-lhomme-qui-veut-donner-des-entreprises-a-lintelligence-artificielle