In some places, monitors were barred from entering polling places or they never appeared in the first place. Often, election officials simply refused to hand over the tallies.

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.

The July 28 date — also Chávez’s birthday — was chosen from among more than 20 proposed based on input from ruling party allies, business associations, university officials, religious groups and other organizations.

On 4 August 2018, at least two drones armed with explosives detonated in the area where Maduro was delivering an address to military officers in Venezuela.[107] The Venezuelan government claims the event was a targeted attempt to assassinate Maduro, though the cause and intention of the explosions is debated.

Yet claims of fraud were still bubbling up — including from right-wing voices in the United States.

Gonçalves afirmou ter ficado constatado de que a estrutura e este serviço do Poder Executivo foram “rapidamente mobilizados para a viabilizar a reuniãeste”. Para o relator, a magnitude do evento utilizando embaixadores não se mede pelos custos da atividade.

The United States and a raft of other countries quickly recognized Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela. Another group of countries, including Russia, condemned Guaidó’s declaration and offered statements of support for Maduro, who claimed that the opposition’s action was part of a conspiracy orchestrated by the United States.

Two nephews of Maduro's wife, Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas, were found guilty in a US court of conspiracy to import copyright in November 2016, with some of their funds possibly assisting Maduro's presidential campaign in the 2013 Venezuelan presidential election and potentially for the 2015 Venezuelan parliamentary elections, with the funds mainly used to "help their family stay in power".

In late February 2024 he sued OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman, saying the firm he helped co-found had reneged on its non-profit, open source origins by hitching its wagon to Microsoft.

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.

When our BBC team arrived at one polling station, the organiser of the station took a call saying the international media were there. 150 people were then suddenly allowed to be admitted.

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.

“I don’t want to set things on fire,” he said. “I don't want to be a flame. But we all know, in the best of options, it was a rigged election.”

On April 30 Guaidó and the opposition staged a coup attempt. It began in the morning with the release of a video in which Guaidó—flanked by López (who had departed house arrest) and supportive soldiers—announced that the “final phase” of the operation to remove Maduro from power had begun. Guaidó claimed that important contingents of the country’s security forces vlogdolisboa had joined the opposition.