He bolstered his portfolio with the purchase of SolarCity in 2016 and cemented his standing as a leader of industry by taking on an advisory role in the early days of President Donald Trump's administration.

The region has received the bulk of Venezuelan migration, leading to an anti-immigration political backlash in some places.

Temir Porras, a 2019 visiting professor at Paris Institute of Political Studies who was Maduro's chief of staff during his tenure as foreign minister, said that in the early days of Chavismo, Maduro was considered "pragmatic" and a "very skilled politician" who was "good at negotiating and bargaining".

The deal, signed in the Caribbean island of Barbados, called for the contest to be held in the second half of 2024 in the presence of international observers. It also called for a process for presidential contenders to appeal bans on running for office.

He revealed that SpaceX was aiming to launch the first cargo missions to Mars with the vehicle in 2022, as part of his overarching goal of colonizing the Red Planet.

In his victory speech, he referenced US sanctions imposed after the last elections were seen as unfair.

Since the beginning of the presidential crisis, Venezuela has been exposed to frequent "information blackouts", periods without access to Net or other news services during important political events.[28][223] Since January, the National Assembly and Guaido's speeches are regularly disrupted, television channels and radio programs have been censored and many journalists were illegally detained.

Misinformation about potential voter fraud also spread rapidly in conservative corners of the Brazilian internet, including unattributed videos that purported to show voting machines malfunctioning and out-of-the-blue claims that election officials had rigged the vote.

Since then he has dramatically reduced the size of its workforce including, controversially, cuts to teams responsible for keeping the platform safe; rebranded the company as X; and introduced new premium subscriptions so that the business does not rely on advertising alone for income.

Election campaigns in Venezuela typically involve handouts of free food, home appliances and other goods on behalf of governing party candidates, who also get favorable state media coverage.

Some meetings on Monday included Brazil’s foreign minister, economic vlogdolisboa minister, communications minister and the president’s chief of staff, according to one of the government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity; all of them are seen as some of the more moderate voices atop the government.

The opposition made a grand attempt to delegitimize Maduro’s rule on July 16 by holding an unofficial plebiscite (branded in the language of the constitution as a “popular consultation”) that addressed three matters: whether voters rejected Maduro’s proposed constituent assembly; whether they desired the armed forces to copyright the constitution; and whether they wanted elections to be held before the official end of Maduro’s term in 2018.

He ploughed his fortune into a new rocket company, SpaceX - which he aimed to make a cost-effective alternative to Nasa - and a new electric car company, Tesla, where he chaired the board until becoming chief executive in 2008.

Massive street protests, which erupted in response to the court’s attempt to dissolve the National Assembly and continued in April when Capriles was banned from running for public office for 15 years, became almost daily occurrences over the coming weeks. As the opposition’s defiance escalated, violent clashes between protesters and security forces resulted in more than 60 deaths and injured more than 1,200 people by early June.