On Tuesday (30), President Nicolás Maduro said billionaire Elon Musk, owner of the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), is an agent trying to destabilize Venezuela. During a meeting of the Security Council at the Miraflores Palace, the president said that behind the violent demonstrations by the extreme right and the attack on the country's electoral system, there is "the US empire, Colombian drug traffickers, Elon Musk and the extremist and fascist right".
According to Maduro, the billionaire is one of the people responsible for boosting “chaos, lies and violence” in Venezuela and encouraging attacks against the country’s National Electoral Council (CNE, in Portuguese).
“I’m sure the attacks are headed by the power of Elon Musk. We are facing an international push, a US push, a push led by Elon Musk, the international far right and Colombian drug traffickers to take over the country through crime, chaos lies and violence,” he said.
“He wants to control the world. He already controls Argentina […] Do you want to fight, Elon Musk? I’m ready. I’m the son of [Simón] Bolívar and [Hugo] Chávez, I’m not afraid of you,” Maduro said in a press conference also held on Tuesday (30). The next day, the tech tycoon posted on his X account that he "accepted" the challenge. In another post, he said “If I win, he will resign from the presidency of Venezuela. If I lose, he will get free travel to Mars.”
The government has set up a Security Council to discuss the next measures to curb violent demonstrations. The group brought together ministers, prosecutors and members of the Armed Forces. One of the topics addressed was the attack on the Venezuelan electoral system. The Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE, in Spanish) denounced a hacker attack during the presidential elections. The council said this delayed the release of the results.
Elon Musk has supported the violent demonstrations in Venezuela and challenged the results of the country's elections. On social media, he has shared messages claiming that opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia won the election and asking Venezuelans to take to the streets to protest against the results.
The elections were held on Sunday (28) and saw President Nicolás Maduro win for a third presidential term. He received 51.2% of the votes against 44.2% for the former ambassador and candidate of the Democratic Unity Platform (PUD, in Spanish). The CNE released the results after 80% of the ballots had been counted.
Soon after the results were released, Elon Musk stated it was “true” the accusation made by former deputy and ultraliberal politician María Corina Machado. Without evidence, she said that “González Urrutia had 70% of the votes and Nicolás Maduro, 30%.”
After the demonstrations began, Musk shared a video in which alleged demonstrators had torn down a billboard with Maduro's picture and, referring to the president, said that the "people of Venezuela are fed up with this clown". In other posts, Musk also called Maduro "dumb", a dictator and shared a series of photos of violent far-right demonstrations, the so-called guarimbas.
He also shared a fake image made by the far right with the supposed "true results" of the elections. In the image, Edmundo González has more than 7 million votes against 3.2 million for Maduro. The data contradicts what María Corina Machado said after the results were released. Without providing evidence, she said that the Unity Platform candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, received 6,275,182 votes against Maduro's 2,759,256 and declared she would not recognize the CNE's official count.
Elon Musk in Bolivia
This is not the first time the billionaire has criticized political processes in South America. In 2020, in a post on X, Musk warned: "We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it". The message was a response to a user who claimed that the owner of the electric car manufacturer Tesla was attempting a coup in Bolivia to control lithium reserves in the country.
Bolivia has the largest lithium reserves in the world. It is about 23 million tons concentrated in southern Bolivia. The region known as Salar do Uyuni is part of a triangle of large reserves that includes Argentina – 17 million tons – and Chile – 9.3 million tons.
Lithium is a key component in the production of high-performance batteries for electric cars. Musk's Tesla is one of the main manufacturers of these vehicles in the world. Bolivian entrepreneur Samuel Doria Medina even called for Tesla to "build a gigafactory in Salar de Uyuni to supply lithium batteries", as Bolsonaro and Musk discussed opening a factory in Brazil.
Maduro asks Venezuelan Justice to investigate the cyber-attack and 'resolve' the voting records issue
Nicolás Maduro called on Wednesday (31) for the Venezuelan justice system to "resolve" the issue of electoral records. The country's electoral system has not yet released the segmented results of Venezuela's polling stations due to an alleged cyber-attack against the National Electoral Council (CNE) system. Maduro also said that this "hacker attack" needs to be investigated. The CNE has 30 days to publish the full results of the elections in the Official Gazette.
"The law establishes a period; the CNE was under attack, as everyone could see. As we speak, the system is under cyber-attack, and the technicians are [working] at the moment. Let the Supreme Court of Justice sort everything out. There is a Supreme Court of Justice, and that court has the holy word of a process under attack that has never been seen before. The truth will prevail," he said.
Also on Wednesday, Maduro said that the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) will release 100% of the voting records collected by its inspectors soon and asked for calm to wait for the results to be audited. He made himself available to give evidence to the Venezuelan justice system and, if necessary, to be investigated about the electoral procedure.
Each party can have an inspector at each of the 30,000 or so polling stations to check that station's voting records. They keep a copy of the voting records and can return them to the party. This has been one of the opposition's accusations, claiming that it has its electoral minutes, which it has published on its website.
Edited by: Nathallia Fonseca
