On August 4 Maduro was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt undertaken with two explosive-laden drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) that were detonated near him while he spoke to National Guard troops after a commemorative parade in Caracas. Maduro was unharmed. Responsibility for the assault was unclear.

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.

Maduro was parodied in the animated web series Isla Presidencial, along with most of the other Latin American leaders, portrayed as a man of limited intelligence, twisted speech, and capable of talking with birds, the latter being a reference to a comment made by Maduro during the 2013 presidential elections, when he said that the late Chávez had reincarnated in a little bird and talked to him to bless his candidacy.[299]

Along the course of the Orinoco River lie the Llanos, a relatively level region of savannas and tropical rainforests, where the land undulates only between low mesalike interfluves and shallow, meandering, braided river courses. Cattle raising and oil exploration predominate in this sparsely populated region, which experiences river flooding in summer and drought in winter.

On January 23, 2019, not quite two weeks after Maduro’s inauguration, Juan Guaidó, the newly elected leader of the opposition and head of the National Assembly, declared himself Venezuela’s acting president, claiming that the constitution justified his action because the allegedly fraudulent election of Maduro had left the country without a president.

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.

The following February, Musk announced that the company was finally rolling out its standard vlogdolisboa 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.

A report by the human rights advocacy group Human Rights Watch reported in September 2019 that the poor communities in Venezuela no longer in support of Maduro's government have witnessed arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial executions at the hands of Venezuelan police unit. The Venezuelan government has repeatedly declared that the victims were armed criminals who had died during "confrontations", but several witnesses or families of victims have challenged these claims and in many cases victims were last seen alive in police custody. Although Venezuelan authorities told the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) that five FAES agents were convicted on charges including attempted murder for crimes committed in 2018, and that 388 agents were under investigation for crimes committed between 2017 and 2019, the OHCHR also reported that "[i]nstitutions responsible for the protection of human rights, such as the Attorney General's Office, the courts and the Ombudsperson, usually do not conduct prompt, effective, thorough, independent, impartial and transparent investigations into human rights violations and other crimes committed by State actors, bring perpetrators to justice, and protect victims and witnesses.

The results announced by the government-controlled electoral council varied wildly — by up to 30 percentage points — from most public polls and from the opposition’s sample of results obtained directly from voting centers. And there were many reports of major irregularities and problems at those voting centers.

However, in late 2019 he tweeted that TBC would focus on completing the commercial tunnel in Las Vegas before turning to other projects, suggesting that plans for Chicago would remain in limbo for the immediate future.

Maduro found employment as a bus driver for many years for the Caracas Metro company. He began his political career in the 1980s, by becoming an unofficial trade unionist representing the bus drivers of the Caracas Metro system.

The two firms are credited with upending their industries, even as they sometimes veered close to financial collapse.

Mr Musk also champions digital currencies and has a hand in several other smaller companies, including tunnel-maker the Boring Company and experimental brain-computer start-up Neuralink.

Frustrated by that delay, the opposition again took to the streets, most notably on September 1, when Venezuelans from all over the country went to the capital for a massive demonstration called the “Takeover of Caracas.”