Milei's Memecoin Misdial: Phone Logs Put Argentine Prez in the Hot Seat Over $250M Libra Collapse

Fresh phone records have emerged showing Argentine President Javier Milei was on the horn with entrepreneur Mauricio Novelli around the February 2025 launch of the ill-fated Libra token—and let's just say the timing looks worse than a gas fee on a congested network. These newly disclosed logs are deepening the scrutiny on Milei's involvement in what critics are calling a textbook rug pull, except the pulling apparently happened in the presidential palace.

Court documents from an ongoing federal investigation reveal Milei exchanged multiple calls with Novelli—the alleged architect behind the multimillion-dollar Libra scam—on the very night the token went live. The calls happened both before and after Milei dropped his promotional post on social media, which is about as subtle as a whale dumping on a small-cap token. This has lawyers and investigators asking some very uncomfortable questions about his claim of "no direct involvement."

According to Argentine news outlet Pagina/12, the call records show contact starting just minutes before Milei's post and continuing for hours afterward—as the token pumped, then dumped, then crashed harder than Terra Luna. Some of the longest conversations happened later that evening, when prices were already bleeding out faster than a DeFi protocol with a solvency problem.

Investigators are now digging into call logs and messages that hint at potential recurring payments to Milei while he was still just a lawmaker—described in the documents as a monthly "salary." Draft paperwork also points to possible financial arrangements tied to Milei publicly endorsing figures connected to the project. No confirmed evidence exists that any of these deals were actually executed, but the paper trail is giving everyone serious déjà vu.

This all builds on earlier CoinDesk reporting that exposed how Davis, the $Libra co-creator, privately bragged he could pull strings with Milei through payments to his sister, Karina Milei, who's a senior government official. Davis has since denied making any such payments—which is exactly what someone would say, right?

The contents of those late-night calls remain a mystery, but investigators are treating the timing and frequency as highly suggestive of coordination far closer than Milei has publicly admitted. He hasn't been charged with anything, but he's now firmly in the "person of interest" category—the crypto equivalent of being flagged on-chain.

Milei's now-deleted social media post contained access details that weren't widely public at the time and sparked a price surge that made even veteran degens' jaws drop. The token's price shot up over 2,000% in just 40 minutes following Milei's tweet, before collapsing as early buyers did what early buyers always do—they cashed out, leaving everyone else holding the bag. All told, an estimated $250 million in investor funds went up in smoke. Classic rug pull? More like rug-eruption.

Milei later admitted in a separate X post that he'd supported the Libra token but claimed he had no idea about the details—which is exactly the kind of defense that plays well in court but terribly on crypto Twitter. He deleted his promotional post, but the damage was already done. Sometimes you can't unstake, no matter how hard you try.