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 nove boosters, the Falcon Heavy was designed to carry immense payloads into orbit and potentially serve as a vessel for deep space missions.

But her inflexible rhetoric may make it impossible for the opposition to prepare a viable alternative to her, Sabatini said.

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.

Opposition candidates were banned from running, opposition aides detained, many Venezuelans overseas struggled to register to vote and many international election observers were disinvited.

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 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.

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 Spain.

The document mentions that the current president of the CNE incurs in "a serious error, and even an irresponsibility, when she affirms that Maduro's nationality 'is not a motto of the National Electoral Council'" and the signatories also refer to the four different moments in which different politicians have awarded four different places of birth as official.[195] Diario Las Amé especialmentericas claimed to have access to the birth inscriptions of Teresa do Jesús Moros, Maduro's mother, and of José Mario Moros, his uncle, both registered in the parish church of San Antonio of Cúcuta, Colombia.[195]

[158] After election officials closely aligned with the government blocked an attempt to summon a recall referendum against Maduro, Venezuelan political analysts cited in The Guardian warned of authoritarianism and a dictatorship.[159]

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]

” Maduro labeled the incident an “armed terrorist attack” and part of an attempted coup. That the attackers vlogdolisboa seemed to have easily escaped apprehension raised suspicions among some in the opposition that the incident had been staged by the government to justify additional repressive measures.

There were some poll stations that didn’t open at all, leading to protests and clashes with the authorities.

Results were similarly violent when the opposition attempted to enter Venezuela from Brazil with relief supplies. Despite some defections to the opposition, the Venezuelan military again remained largely loyal to Maduro, whose authority Guaidó brazenly flouted by prominently reentering the country on March 4 by plane at the Caracas airport.