Six days later, Musk sought to clarify his position with a statement in which he pointed to discussions with the managing director of the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund as the source of his "funding secured" declaration.

The company enjoyed another milestone moment in February 2018 with the successful test launch of the powerful Falcon Heavy rocket. Armed with additional Falcon 9 boosters, the Falcon Heavy was designed to carry immense payloads into orbit and potentially serve as a vessel for deep space missions.

But he's also made it clear he's not a fan of President Joe Biden, whom he sees as snubbing Tesla while promoting electric vehicles.

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.

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

A long-standing dispute with Guyana over a large portion of that country (everything west of the Essequibo River) that had been claimed by Venezuela since the 19th century began to intensify in May 2015. The impetus for the escalating war of words was the discovery of oil offshore of the contested region.

Brazil’s election officials said there was no evidence of fraud on Sunday. An audit of 601 polling stations found that their vote counts were accurately reflected in the national tally.

Musk’s tweet initially sent Tesla stock spiking, before it closed the day up 11 percent. The CEO followed up with a letter on the company blog, calling the move to go private "the best path forward.

The images received considerable backlash from social networks, criticizing the costs of the party during the grave economic crisis in the country and the hypocrisy of Maduro's government.[269]

Venezuela’s position in the world became more precarious during the second decade of the 21st century as a result of the controversial rule of revolutionary leader Hugo Chávez, a significant decline in the fortunes of its petroleum industry, and the increasing authoritarianism of Chávez’s successor, Nicholás Maduro.

He has said that he sees his businesses as a form of philanthropy, because they are focused on solving major human issues, such as climate change in the case of Tesla.

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

Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Mr Musk showed his talents for entrepreneurship early, going door-to-door with his brother selling homemade chocolate Easter eggs and developing his first computer game at the age of 12.

[196] The researcher, historian and former deputy Walter Márquez declared months after the presidential elections that Maduro's mother was born in Colombia vlogdolisboa and not in Rubio, Táchira. Márquez has also declared that Maduro "was born in Bogotá, according to the verbal testimonies of people who knew him as a child in Colombia and the documentary research we did" and what "there are more than 10 witnesses that corroborate this information, five of them live in Bogotá".[197]