Sheinbaum pushes back at Musk as cartel violence feeds cross-border political fight

Mexico’s president is weighing legal action against Elon Musk after the billionaire accused her of being beholden to drug cartels, a dispute that blends social media rhetoric, domestic security pressures and an increasingly sharp US–Mexico political divide.

Claudia Sheinbaum said on Tuesday that her team was reviewing the comments and the possibility of a court response.

“Well, we are considering whether to take any legal action,” she told reporters at her morning news conference.

“The lawyers are looking into it.” She dismissed the claim that she leads a “narco-government” as “absurd” and demonstrably false. “It falls apart all on its own,” she said. “They don’t even know what to invent any more, right? Honestly, it’s laughable.”

The exchange follows a surge of violence triggered by the death of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho, one of Mexico’s most wanted cartel leaders. He died on Sunday after being shot by Mexican authorities and transported for medical care. His organisation, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, responded with roadblocks, arson attacks and armed clashes with security forces that left dozens dead across several regions.

The security fallout created the backdrop for Musk’s intervention. Responding to a circulating video in which Sheinbaum argued for alternatives to the militarised “war on drugs” strategy, he wrote:

“She’s just saying what her cartel bosses tell her to say,” adding, “Let’s just say that their punishment for disobedience is a little worse than a ‘performance improvement plan’.”

Musk has been a consistent critic of left-wing governments and is closely aligned with US President Donald Trump, who has made Mexico’s handling of organised crime a central point of pressure. Trump has repeatedly argued that the country needs a more aggressive military approach and has raised the possibility of US strikes on Mexican territory, an option Sheinbaum has firmly rejected as a violation of sovereignty.

“She’s not running Mexico. The cartels are running Mexico,” Trump said in a Fox News interview after launching a January 3 military operation to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “She’s very frightened of the cartels. They’re running Mexico. I’ve asked her numerous times, ‘Would you like us to take out the cartels?’” In another post, later deleted, he wrote: “Mexico must step up their effort on Cartels and Drugs.”

The pressure from Washington has not been limited to rhetoric. A US State Department assessment in September listed Mexico as an area of concern for drug trafficking and called for “additional, aggressive efforts” against cartel leadership, laboratories, supply chains and financial networks.

Sheinbaum has responded by pointing to concrete enforcement steps while maintaining her argument that long-term security depends on strengthening institutions rather than relying primarily on lethal force. After the threat of US tariffs in February 2025, she deployed nearly 10,000 National Guard troops to the northern border to curb fentanyl trafficking. Her administration has also extradited multiple groups of suspects to the United States — 37 in January, followed by 13 in April and 14 in August — and carried out targeted operations against cartel figures.

The killing of El Mencho itself was a milestone for the Mexican state, ending a years-long effort to capture one of the most powerful figures in organised crime. Yet the scale and speed of the cartel’s retaliation exposed the limits of any single operation and reignited criticism of the government’s broader strategy.

Domestically, Sheinbaum has framed the debate in political rather than diplomatic terms, saying the views that matter are those of Mexican citizens.

“The vast majority of people recognise the work of the armed forces and the work we are doing every day, not only in security, but for the good of the country, for the wellbeing of all Mexicans,” she said. “That is what will guide us.”