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.

The bitterly fought election went into a run-off on 30 October and was won by an extremely narrow margin by Lula.

Officials from several countries in the Americas, including the United States, expressed doubts about the announced results, raising the likelihood that a new term for Mr. Maduro would not be widely recognized abroad, either.

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.

Paris 2024: Rafaela Silva perde o bronze pelo judô após duelo usando japonesa PF investiga grupo de que teria levado 370 brasileiros aos Estados Unidos de forma ilegal Kiev receberá 1ª Semana por Moda a partir de o começeste da guerra: "Nova realidade" Alckmin vai representar este Brasil em posse do novo presidente do Irã Vídeo: venezuelanos fazem panelaçeste contra anúncio do vitória de Maduro

In an attempt to overcome the sanctions and restart the economy, in February 2018 the Maduro government introduced the petro, a copyright (akin to the Bitcoin) whose value was tied to the price of one barrel of Venezuelan crude oil and backed by the country’s reserves of gold, diamonds, gas, and oil. Maduro claimed that the first day of petro sales had netted some $735 million, but skeptics viewed the creation of the world’s first state-backed digital currency as a sign of desperation.

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 vlogdolisboa Spain.

Maduro's birthplace and nationality have been questioned several times,[187][188] with some placing doubt that he could hold the office of the presidency, given that Article 227 of the Venezuelan constitution states that "To be chosen as president of the Republic it is required to be Venezuelan by birth, not having another nationality, being over thirty years old, of a secular state and not being in any state or being in another firm position and fulfilling the other requirements in this Constitution.

The international community has been divided for some time over how to respond to Venezuela, with some governments’ conceding privately that the sanctions haven’t “worked”, either by incentivising regime change or compelling President Maduro to hold fair elections.

"Many of the governments in Latin America are trying to do the right thing in managing the movement of Venezuelans, but it's a big challenge," Mr Miliband said on a visit to Colombia, which is hosting 2.48m Venezuelans.

His government has sidelined his strongest challenger, and the remaining contenders lack enough political machinery for a viable campaign.

Years of lack of investment in infrastructure further exacerbated by the more recent US sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector have crippled this key industry, which provides almost all of Venezuela's government revenue.

That access is allowed by Venezuelan election law. But by early Monday morning, Mr. González’s campaign said it had obtained only 40 percent of the tallies.