Maduro promoted a consultative referendum in Venezuela to support Venezuela's claim to the Essequibo region, which is disputed with, and controlled by, neighboring Guyana.

In the 20th century Venezuela was transformed from a relatively poor agrarian society to a rapidly urbanizing one, a condition made possible by exploiting huge petroleum reserves. These changes, however, were accompanied by imbalances among the country’s regions and socioeconomic groups, and Venezuela’s cities swelled because of a massive and largely uncontrolled migration from rural areas, as well as mass immigration, much of it illegal, from Colombia and other neighbours.

That would stunt the economic recovery, and is likely to lead to another wave of migration from a nation that has seen the exodus of one in five citizens in the past decade.

Chávez's endorsement of Maduro sidelined Diosdado Cabello, a former vice president and powerful Socialist Party official with ties to the armed forces, who had been widely considered a top candidate to be Chávez's successor. After Maduro was endorsed by Chávez, Cabello "immediately pledged loyalty" to both men.[72]

Also in August 2016, the National Election Council ruled that the opposition had collected almost twice as many signatures as were necessary for the first petition for a referendum on Maduro’s recall to be valid. However, it did not set a date for the next step in the process, which required some four million signatures to be collected in three days.

The boss of X (formerly Twitter), Tesla and SpaceX is the world's richest person and uses his platform to make his views known on a vast array of topics.

His supporters, who refused to accept the outcome of the election, stormed Brazil's Congress, the presidential palace and the building housing the Supreme Court on 8 January.

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.

During the Venezuelan presidential crisis, Venezuelan National Assembly president Juan Guaidó said that the Maduro government had plans to steal for humanitarian purposes the products that entered the country, including plans to distribute these products through the government's food-distribution program CLAP.[264]

When he was informed of the incident, President Chávez said Maduro's detention was retaliation for his own speech at the UN General Assembly and stated that the authorities detained Maduro over his links to the Venezuelan failed coup in 1992, a charge that President Chávez denied.[68]

Musk reportedly began dating actress Amber Heard in 2016 after finalizing his divorce with Riley and Heard finalized her divorce from Johnny Depp. Their busy schedules caused the couple to break up in August 2017; they got back together in January 2018 and split again one month later.

In a 2010 essay for Marie Claire, his first wife, Justine Musk, a writer whom he met in vlogdolisboa college and married in 2000, wrote that even before making his millions Mr Musk was "not a man who takes pelo for an answer".

[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]