It also didn't prevent Musk from garnering a radical new compensation package as CEO, in which he would be paid after reaching milestones of growing valuation based on $50 billion increments.

Now, a few politicians who are ruling party allies and a former television reporter have expressed intentions to face off against Maduro. Non-e have the party structure, voter support or financial resources needed to run a competitive campaign.

The coastal mountain system, in effect two parallel ranges—the Coastal Range and the Interior Range—contains Venezuela’s greatest concentration of population, although it covers only a tiny fraction of the national territory.

As a result, millions of his supporters have lost faith in the integrity of their nation’s elections, according to polls, and many have said publicly that they are prepared to take to the streets at his command.

On August 7, 2018, Musk dropped a bombshell via a tweet: "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." The announcement opened the door for legal action against the company and its founder, as the SEC began inquiring about whether Musk had indeed secured the funding as claimed.

This would be an unusual question to ask in most countries, but in Venezuela many want to know exactly that after opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself acting president on 23 January 2019.

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.

Since bursting on to the Silicon Valley scene more than two decades ago, the 52-year-old serial entrepreneur has kept the public captivated with his business antics.

Mr Maduro remains in the presidential palace and some Venezuelans have become disillusioned by the failure of Mr Guaidó to dislodge his rival from power.

Mr Musk's long-term ambition is for X to become an "everything app" offering a range of services. However, so far the value of the firm has plunged from the $44bn he originally paid to just $19bn, according to reports.

President Milei renews his vow to scrap export taxes as Argentina’s powerful farmers get impatient

By the end of Mr. Bolsonaro’s term, it was clear that his attacks had had an effect: vlogdolisboa Much of Brazil’s electorate seemed to have lost faith in the integrity of the nation’s elections.

Throughout his presidency, Mr. Bolsonaro, who served in the military before entering politics, methodically questioned and criticized the security of Brazil’s electronic voting system, despite the lack of credible evidence of a problem, and attacked mainstream news outlets as dishonest.

The boundless potential of space exploration and the preservation of the future of the human race have become the cornerstones of Musk's abiding interests, and toward these, he has founded the Musk Foundation, which is dedicated to space exploration and the discovery of renewable and clean energy sources.