title: Factbox: Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim and the U.S. election
text: MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was set to add Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim as a target of his verbal attacks, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.  It cited a Trump adviser as saying the candidate would accuse Slim, one of the world’s richest people, of helping to generate allegations in the media of sexual misconduct by Trump. Trump will claim that Slim, as a donor to the Clinton Foundation charity and the largest single shareholder in The New York Times, has an interest in helping her White House campaign, the newspaper said. Slim spokesman Arturo Elias told the Journal that the allegations that Mexico’s richest man was interfering in the U.S. election were “totally false Slim built his multibillion-dollar empire by purchasing troubled companies and turning them around.      Here are some facts about him: * He was born in Mexico on January 28, 1940, the son of a Lebanese immigrant who built a small fortune by purchasing properties at cheap prices during the Mexican Revolution.  * He was the world’s richest man until a decline in his flagship telephone company America Movil’s stock dragged down his fortune. He remains the world’s No. 4 billionaire with a fortune of $50 billion, according to Forbes. * Slim began accumulating New York Times shares in 2008, buying up 6.9 percent. In 2009, he extended a $250 million loan to the paper that was convertible into more shares and he is now the Times’ top individual shareholder with 17.35 percent.  * Slim is an engineer by profession and graduated from Mexico’s public National Autonomous University. He is a die-hard fan of the school’s professional league soccer team, Pumas. * Slim amassed his fortune after buying Mexico’s state-run phone monopoly in 1990 and turning it into Latin America’s biggest telecommunications company. His investments stretch from banking, mining and media to construction telecoms and oil services.     * In Mexico, where there are strict restrictions on private donations to political campaigns, he has strived to appear neutral in elections.  * He has made donations to the Clinton’s family foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. * Last year, Slim traveled to El Salvador and Peru with Bill Clinton and Canadian mining tycoon Frank Giustra and the three set up a partnership to fund health and employment initiatives. They had launched a $20 million fund to help small businesses in Haiti in 2010. * Slim has lived in the same house for more than 40 years and prefers to drive himself around Mexico City in his old Mercedes. * He is believed to own the largest number of sculptures by Auguste Rodin outside the artist’s native France.         