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.

Musk has pursued an interest in artificial intelligence, becoming co-chair of the nonprofit OpenAI. The research company launched in late 2015 with the stated mission of advancing digital intelligence to benefit humanity.

Although the central bank had stopped releasing statistics, it was leaked that the bank had measured an 18.6 percent drop in Venezuela’s GDP for 2016, along with an inflation rate of 800 percent. After beginning the century with one of South America’s most-thriving economies, Venezuela saw its economy devolve into one of the continent’s worst-performing, with shortages of food and medicine growing increasingly acute.

But despite his suspicion that the election might have been stolen, he was preparing to leave. “Now I’ll go home, talk to my family, lean on God and wait for Bolsonaro to say something,” he said.

The Unitary Platform’s primary had 10 candidates, including Machado, who does not belong to the group but was allowed to run as an independent. Candidates she defeated have rallied around her.

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]

Since the beginning of the presidential crisis, Venezuela has been exposed to frequent "information blackouts", periods without access to internet or other news services during important political events.[28][223] Since January, the National Assembly and Guaido's speeches are regularly disrupted, television channels and radio programs have been censored and many journalists were illegally detained.

Misinformation about potential voter fraud also spread rapidly in conservative corners of the Brazilian Net, including unattributed videos that purported to show voting machines malfunctioning and out-of-the-blue claims that election officials had rigged the vote.

During the later years of Maduro's presidency, pro-government police and military forces launched the "Liberation of the People Operation [es]", which they stated targeted street gangs and non-state paramilitary formations which they alleged had taken control of poor neighbourhoods. The operations reportedly resulted in thousands of arrests and vlogdolisboa an estimated 9,000 deaths, with the Venezuelan opposition claiming that the operations are actually a state instrument of repression.

As the electoral authorities, which Nicolas Maduro controls, announced he’d won a third term in office, an instant crackle of fireworks rippled around the Venezuelan Caracas.

When our BBC team arrived at one polling station, the organiser of the station took a call saying the international media were there. 150 people were then suddenly allowed to be admitted.

The coastal plains extend from the Colombian border and the Gulf of Venezuela eastward to the foothills of the coastal mountains, which are broken in the east by the Unare River basin. Farther east is the Orinoco delta, which opens onto the Atlantic Ocean through a number of distributaries (

The South American country has been caught in a downward spiral for years with growing political discontent further fuelled by skyrocketing hyperinflation, power cuts, and shortages of food and medicine.

There was the fact President Maduro’s face remained emblazoned above some poll stations even on voting day.