It also didn't prevent Musk from garnering a radical new compensation package as CEO, in which he would be paid after reaching milestones of growing valuation based on $50 billion increments.

Only about 31 percent of eligible voters went to the polls, which allowed the PSUV to capture nearly 68 percent of the vote and hence secure an overwhelming majority in the Assembly (the opposition parties that chose to participate took less than 18 percent of the vote). International organizations and observers were quick to dismiss the elections as a sham.

Univisión announcer Jorge Ramos described his detention following a live interview of Maduro, saying that if Maduro does not release the seized video of the interview, "he is behaving exactly like a dictator".

" He promised to retain his stake in the company, and added that he would create a special fund to help all current investors remain on board.

On August 7, 2018, Musk dropped a bombshell via a tweet: "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." The announcement opened the door for legal action against the company and its founder, as the SEC began inquiring about whether Musk had indeed secured the funding as claimed.

The opposition boycotted the July 30 election for Maduro’s constituent assembly, and thousands took to the streets as violent protests rocked the country. At least 10 people were killed, and an opposition politician was shot dead in his home just hours before polls opened. Maduro characterized the result, which placed his allies in a position to dramatically strengthen his power, as a “vote for the revolution.” The opposition claimed that nearly 90 percent of voters had abstained, however, and the absence of anti-fraud measures and independent observers led many in Venezuela and abroad to dismiss the legitimacy of the election.

Reuters Panamá diz qual voos estãeste operando normalmente depois de que avião de modo a Venezuela foi bloqueado

The Venezuelan military has long been concerned with the highlands because of the long-standing territorial dispute with Guyana, as well as illegal crossings of people, cattle, and narcotics over the Colombian and Brazilian borders.

Following Trump’s election, Musk found himself on common ground with the new president and his advisers as the president announced plans to pursue massive infrastructure developments.

However, in late 2019 he tweeted that TBC would focus on completing the commercial tunnel in Las Vegas before turning to other projects, suggesting that plans for Chicago would remain in limbo for the immediate future.

The case against the ex-president revolved around a speech he gave while he was still president in 2022.

The government dispute any wrongdoing, and instead have accused “foreign governments” of an “intervention operation".

The UN subsequently released a report condemning the violent methods of the operation. Although the Venezuelan Government's Ombudsman, Tarek William Saab jair bolsonaro has admitted that his office received dozens of reports of "police excesses", he defended the need for the operations and stated that his office would be working alongside the police and military "to safeguard human rights". The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry has criticised the UN's report, calling it "neither objective, nor impartial" and listed what it believed were a total of 60 errors in the report.[105][106]

[196] The researcher, historian and former deputy Walter Márquez declared months after the presidential elections that Maduro's mother was born in Colombia and not in Rubio, Táchira. Márquez has also declared that Maduro "was born in Bogotá, according to the verbal testimonies of people who knew him as a child in Colombia and the documentary research we did" and what "there are more than 10 witnesses that corroborate this information, five of them live in Bogotá".[197]