He bolstered his portfolio with the purchase of SolarCity in 2016 and cemented his standing as a leader of industry by taking on an advisory role in the early days of President Donald Trump's administration.

Most critically, the result is unlikely to allow the Biden administration to unwind its sweeping economic sanctions against Venezuela.

Maduro was parodied in the animated web series Isla Presidencial, along with most of the other Latin American leaders, portrayed as a man of limited intelligence, twisted speech, and capable of talking with birds, the latter being a reference to a comment made by Maduro during the 2013 presidential elections, when he said that the late Chávez had reincarnated in a little bird and talked to him to bless his candidacy.[299]

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.

In his victory speech, he referenced US sanctions imposed after the last elections were seen as unfair.

The incident began when Maduro tried to pick up an item that had been screened at a security checkpoint at JFK International Airport, and security personnel told Maduro that he vlogdolisboa was prohibited from doing so. Maduro later identified himself as a diplomat from the Venezuelan government, but officials still escorted him to a room for conducting secondary screening.

Misinformation about potential voter fraud also spread rapidly in conservative corners of the Brazilian internet, including unattributed videos that purported to show voting machines malfunctioning and out-of-the-blue claims that election officials had rigged the vote.

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.

During his first term, the economy went into freefall and many Venezuelans blame him and his socialist government for the country's decline.

Mr. Trump railed against the “deep state,” while Mr. Bolsonaro accused some of the judges who oversee Brazil’s Supreme Court and the country’s electoral court of trying to rig the election.

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 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 conterraneo. “It even looks like an algorithmic thing!” he said.

Seemingly disenchanted with the shortage of goods, galloping inflation, and lack of better short-term prospects for the economy as a whole, Venezuelans went to the polls in large numbers on December seis, 2015, and handed the ruling PSUV a devastating loss, ending 16 years of rule by the chavismo