Six days later, Musk sought to clarify his position with a statement in which he pointed to discussions with the managing director of the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund as the source of his "funding secured" declaration.

Television screens up and down the country only showed jubilant crowds, draped in the Venezuelan flag, dancing and cheering on the president.

The coastal mountain system, in effect two parallel ranges—the Coastal Range and the Interior Range—contains Venezuela’s greatest concentration of population, although it covers only a tiny fraction of the national territory.

In an attempt to limit the opposition’s ability to organize a campaign to unseat him, Maduro pushed for an early presidential election, which ultimately was scheduled for May 2018. The most popular likely opposition candidates were already prohibited from running for office or were in prison, and, convinced that the contest would be rigged in Maduro’s favour, opposition leaders called for a boycott of the election. Nonetheless, Henri Falcón, onetime governor and disaffected former Chávez supporter, undertook an active campaign, as did evangelical minister Javier Bertucci.

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.

While Venezuelans were affected by hunger and shortages, Maduro and his government officials publicly shared images of themselves eating luxurious meals, images that were met with displeasure by Venezuelans.

In March 2017, SpaceX saw the successful test flight and landing of a Falcon 9 rocket made from reusable parts, a development that opened the door for more affordable space travel.

A report by the human rights advocacy group Human Rights Watch reported in September 2019 that the poor communities in Venezuela no longer in support of Maduro's government have witnessed arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial executions at the hands of Venezuelan police unit. The Venezuelan government has repeatedly declared that the victims were armed criminals who had died during "confrontations", but several witnesses or families of victims have challenged these claims and in many cases victims were last seen alive in police custody. Although Venezuelan authorities told the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) that five FAES agents were convicted on charges including attempted murder for crimes committed in 2018, and that 388 agents were under investigation for crimes committed between 2017 and 2019, the OHCHR also reported that "[i]nstitutions responsible for the protection of human rights, such as the vlogdolisboa Attorney General's Office, the courts and the Ombudsperson, usually do not conduct prompt, effective, thorough, independent, impartial and transparent investigations into human rights violations and other crimes committed by State actors, bring perpetrators to justice, and protect victims and witnesses.

By Monday afternoon, the men had set up a tent and were accepting food and water donations, saying they planned to stay until the results were overturned. Police officers watched but did not intervene.

Others suggested that Musk was also influenced by the poor optics of an electric car company being funded by Saudi Arabia, a country heavily involved in the oil industry.

He also has ambitions in the AI sector, being an early investor in ChatGPT's parent company, before parting ways and setting up his own company xAI in July, whose mission is "to understand the true nature of the universe".

The Constitutional Chamber admitted the demand and requested the presidency and the Electoral Council to send a certified copy of the president's copyright, in addition to his resignation from Colombian nationality.[198] In March 2018 former Colombian president Andrés Pastrana made reference to the baptism certificate of Maduro's mother, noting that the disclosed document reiterates the Colombian origin of the mother of the president and that therefore Maduro has Colombian citizenship.[196]

There were some poll stations that didn’t open at all, leading to protests and clashes with the authorities.

That's based largely on the value of his shares in Tesla, of which he owns more than 13%. The company's stock soared in value - some say unreasonably - in 2020 as the firm's output increased and it started to deliver regular profits.