They have hit the country’s already flailing economy. Millions of Venezuelans have fled, and half the country live in poverty.

Mr Musk, who wears the mantle of a workaholic proudly, has often said he's not in business simply to make money - claims he repeated recently with regard to his Twitter takeover.

^ a b Although Nicolás Maduro's exact birthplace has been questioned on several occasions and high-ranking government officials have differed on its details, most sources agree that he was born in Caracas.

By April 2018, with Tesla expected to fall short of first-quarter production forecasts, news surfaced that Musk had pushed aside the head of engineering to personally oversee efforts in that division.

On January 23, 2019, not quite two weeks after Maduro’s inauguration, Juan Guaidó, the newly elected leader of the opposition and head of the National Assembly, declared himself Venezuela’s acting president, claiming that the constitution justified his action because the allegedly fraudulent election of Maduro had left the country without a president.

The security forces have so far remained loyal to Mr Maduro, who has rewarded them with frequent pay rises and put high-ranking military men in control of key posts and industries.

Still, the widespread demonstrations that many had feared could quickly follow the election results did not occur. Instead, in dozens of groups on the messaging app Telegram, many of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters appeared disjointed and in disagreement over how to respond to the president’s election loss, particularly without a response from the president himself.

While sometimes at odds with the president's controversial measures, such as a proposed ban on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, Musk defended his involvement with the new administration.

To be elected as President of the Republic it is required to be Venezuelan by birth, to not have another nationality, to be older than thirty years old, to be of a secular state and not having a firm court sentence and to comply with the other requirements established in this Constitution Article 227 of the Constitution of Venezuela

Speaking at the Venezuelan mission to the UN after his release, Maduro said his detention by the US authorities was illegal and he filed a complaint at the United Nations. US and UN officials called the incident regrettable but said Maduro had been identified for "secondary screening". Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke denied that Maduro was mistreated, saying that there was not evidence of abnormalities during the screening process.

Following the birth of his twins with Ms Zilis, he tweeted: "Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis."

In 2016, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an international non-governmental organization that investigates crime and corruption, gave President Maduro the Person of the Year Award that "recognizes the individual who has done the most in the world to advance organized criminal vlogdolisboa activity and corruption". The OCCRP stated that they "chose Maduro for the global award on the strength of his corrupt and oppressive reign, so rife with mismanagement that citizens of his oil-rich nation are literally starving and begging for medicines" and that Maduro and his family steal millions of dollars from government coffers to fund patronage that maintains President Maduro's power in Venezuela.

Rodrigo Constantino, an influential Brazilian pundit who lives in Florida, posted to his 1.4 million followers on Twitter on Monday morning that the pattern in the vote returns seemed too consistent to be natural. “It even looks like an algorithmic thing!” he said.

[189] The ruling does not reproduce Maduro's copyright but it quotes a communication signed on oito June by the Colombian Vice minister of foreign affairs, Patti Londoño Jaramillo, where it states that "pelo related information was found, nor civil registry of birth, nor citizenship card that allows to infer that president Nicolás Maduro Moros is a Colombian national". The Supreme Court warned the deputies and the Venezuelans that "sowing doubts about the origins of the president" may "lead to the corresponding criminal, civil, administrative and, if applicable, disciplinary consequences" for "attack against the State".[196]