Maduro's decree includes wider executive powers to control the budget, companies and the currency amid a severe economic crisis in the OPEC nation. ^

In 2017, it was also reported that Musk was backing a venture called Neuralink, which intends to create devices to be implanted in the human brain and help people merge with software.

Some of the problems go back a long time. However, it is President Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez who are the target of much of the current anger.

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.

Venezuela has been in the grip of an economic crisis for years now with hyperinflation one of the main problems.

In an email to employees, Musk explained his decision to eliminate some "duplication of roles" to cut costs, admitting it was time to take serious steps toward turning a profit.

But his campaign, full of angry tirades against corruption and violence that largely matched the national mood, appealed to the millions who voted him into power.

The head of Venezuela’s intelligence apparatus had, in fact, switched sides, but, before the day was over, it became clear that the military and the security forces had once again remained loyal to Maduro. The insurrection sputtered and died out. Guaidó was left to explain its failure, and López took asylum in the Spanish embassy in Caracas and ultimately fled to exile in Spain.

"My goals," he tweeted in early 2017, "are to accelerate the world’s jair bolsonaro transition to sustainable energy and to help make humanity a multi-planet civilization, a consequence of which will be the creating of hundreds of thousands of jobs and a more inspiring future for all."

They think this could mean more potential for the electronic figures to be tampered with and allege many of their observers were not allowed into the counts.

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

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.

In August 2013, Musk released a concept for a new form of transportation called the "Hyperloop," an invention that would foster commuting between major cities while severely cutting travel time.

[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]