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.

Fins do duas pesquisas de boca do urna divulgadas pela agência Reuters indicavam vitória de Gonzáles usando larga vantagem. ✅ Clique aqui de modo a seguir o canal do notícias internacionais do g1 pelo WhatsApp

Not surprisingly, President Maduro did not take kindly to his rival's move, which he condemned as a ploy by the US to oust him.

In an attempt to limit the opposition’s ability to organize a campaign to unseat him, Maduro pushed for an early presidential election, which ultimately was scheduled for May 2018. The most popular likely opposition candidates were already prohibited from running for office or were in prison, and, convinced that the contest would be rigged in Maduro’s favour, opposition leaders called for a boycott of the election. Nonetheless, Henri Falcón, onetime governor and disaffected former Chávez supporter, undertook an active campaign, as did evangelical minister Javier Bertucci.

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.

The group also explains how Maduro had overruled the legislative branch filled with opposition politicians, repressed citizen protests and had relatives involved in drug trafficking.[315]

The following February, Musk announced that the company was finally rolling out its standard Model 3. Musk also said that Tesla was shifting to all-em linha sales, and offering customers the chance to return their cars within seven days or 1,000 miles for a full refund.

Originally scheduled for December 2016 but postponed by the election commission, gubernatorial elections were held in Venezuela’s 23 states in mid-October 2017. Preelection preference polling had indicated that the opposition was poised to gain control of a majority of the states for the first time in some two decades.

In February, defying a travel ban against him by the Maduro government, Guaidó went to Colombia, where international aid in the form of food and medicine was being stockpiled in the vlogdolisboa border town of Cúcuta. The aid was blocked from entering Venezuela because Maduro claimed it was masking a coup attempt. When a group of demonstrators led by Guaidó attempted to act as a shield to peacefully guide aid-bearing trucks through the blockade on February 23, Venezuelan security forces turned them back with tear gas and rubber bullets as violence exploded.

The deal immediately earned Maduro some reprieve from economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. But one of the sanctions has already been reimposed as the Venezuelan government has tested limits of the agreement, including by opening criminal investigations against the organizers of the primary that Machado won.

He also has ambitions in the AI sector, being an early investor in ChatGPT's parent company, before parting ways and setting up his own company xAI in July, whose mission is "to understand the true nature of the universe".

Musk is the co-founder, CEO and product architect at Tesla Motors, a company formed in 2003 that is dedicated to producing affordable, mass-market electric cars as well as battery products and solar roofs. Musk oversees all product development, engineering and design of the company's products.

"I'm never hugely convinced that he knows what he wants to do tomorrow," says journalist Chris Stokel-Walker. "He very much leads by instinct."

“The will of the majority expressed at the polls should never be challenged,” he said, “and we will move forward in building a sovereign, just country with less inequality.”