Billionaire Brazilian brothers emerge as Bolsonaro’s foes in presidential runoff

Two brothers from Brazil’s richest family have emerged as opponents of right-leaning presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro ahead of Sunday’s closely fought runoff election.

Joao and Walter Moreira Salles — scions of the Itau Unibanco Holding fortune with a combined net worth of $17.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — are major donors to progressive and left-leaning congressional candidates and have created journalism and films that are critical of the conservative positions held by Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. That puts the brothers at odds with much of Brazil’s business elite, which has actively sought to build bridges with the candidate as he’s gained ground in the presidential race.

“Flavio is nothing more than his dad’s son; he’s a mediocre man without expression, without history and without ideas,” Joao Moreira Salles wrote in an essay published earlier this month, adding that he’s “less a politician than a last name.”

Bolsonaro is in a neck-and-neck race with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, an octogenarian who’s a fixture of the country’s left and is scorned by business leaders, who accuse him of overspending and failing to fix the country’s public finances. Bolsonaro unexpectedly won a first-round vote on Oct. 4 with a two-point lead, but the two are in a statistical tie ahead of the runoff.

Bolsonaro is an ally of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump and presents himself as political heir to his father, who is currently under house arrest after being sentenced for plotting a coup in 2023 to forcibly remain in power. Lula himself was imprisoned in 2018, until his graft sentence was overturned in 2021.

Joao Moreira Salles’ essay ran in Piaui, Brazil’s version of The New Yorker, which he founded and endowed with a $70 million gift in 2021. It highlighted the Bolsonaro family’s support of Brazil’s former dictatorship, which lasted two decades until 1985. Jair Bolsonaro won the presidency in 2018 as a staunch supporter of that authoritarian regime, saying Brazilians owe their present-day freedom to past dictators.

The essay also called out two dozen Brazilian executives by name for having recently met with Flavio Bolsonaro over dinner. They included Milton Maluhy, chief executive officer of Itau, Latin America’s largest bank and the single largest source of the Moreira Salles family’s fortune.

On Thursday, the magazine published a story detailing a yacht party allegedly including prostitutes that lobbyists held for Flavio Bolsonaro in Brasilia in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The candidate didn’t respond to Piaui’s request for comment, and his campaign didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment by Bloomberg News.

A spokesperson for Itau said in a statement it is apolitical and nonpartisan, adding that Maluhy’s “attendance at events with both candidates competing in the runoff election happened in a neutral and institutional way, without representing support for either candidate.”

Bolsonaro and incumbent Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during the presidential debate at the TV Band studios in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Oct. 18 | BLOOMBERG

Between them, the two brothers have donated $750,000 to progressive and left-leaning congressional candidates over the past decade, according to government records. That includes $50,000 this cycle from Joao and $125,000 from Oscar-winning director Walter, spread among nine candidates who have all endorsed Lula. One of them was Marina Silva, Lula’s former environment minister, who lost her bid for a Senate seat.

The brothers and Bolsonaro didn’t respond to requests for comment.

‘Biggest Setback’

The Moreira Salles family still holds a significant stake in Itau, which they co-control with another billionaire family. Both brothers were Itau shareholders until 2022, when they transferred their stakes to their other two brothers, Pedro and Fernando. The transfer generated billions of dollars in proceeds for Walter and Joao.

The four brothers also own a controlling stake in CBMM, a closely held Brazilian miner that is the world’s top producer of niobium, a rare mineral used to strengthen steel. They also own a stake in Alpargatas, which makes flip-flops under the iconic Havaianas brand.

Outside of his political donations, Walter Salles, as he is commonly known, has stayed mostly silent this campaign season. At an international film festival in Sao Paulo last week, he spoke only about cinema even as other directors made overt political statements.

That has angered some on social media amid broader pressure on Brazilian artists to publicize their political choices at a time of widespread polarization over the election. It also contrasts with his past statements on Bolsonaro’s father, whose presidency he called “the biggest setback since the military dictatorship.”

Brazil’s dictatorship was the subject of Walter Salles’ Oscar-winning film “I’m Still Here,” which depicted the 1970s abduction and killing of a left-leaning lawmaker. It won the 2025 Oscar for best foreign film, drawing praise from Lula, who called the director to congratulate him.

Since then, Walter Salles has appeared in the background of a campaign ad with Lula’s running mate, touting the incumbent’s investments in the arts.

Jair Bolsonaro has said he hasn’t watched the movie, but that he knew the subject of the film in real life.

“I’m not going to waste my time, I have things to do, I know the story better than them,” he said in a 2025 interview, referring to Salles and his team. “Since the film didn’t consult me, it has no validity.”