Ideologically, he is usually defined as a conservative liberal, close to but not affiliated with the Partido Popular, the party with which he ran in the Spanish general elections of April 2019.

He is the grandson of José Daniel Lacalle Larraga, Minister of Air during the Franco dictatorship, and son of the sociologist José Daniel Lacalle Sousa, author of several books on the labor market, a member of the Communist Party of Spain and head of the Economy and Society section of Fundación de Investigaciones Marxistas.

Lacalle's professional career began in March 1991 at Repsol, where he spent eleven years and was responsible for international relations.

[8] Between 2014 and 2015 he worked at PIMCO, one of the largest global fixed income investment asset managers, assuming one of the group's vice presidencies.

LaCalle and the academic president of the judging panel of the Catholic University of Valencia[13] said he had properly referenced others' work and denied that it constituted plagiarism.