Venezuela's President Maduro challenges Elon Musk to a fight (2024)

Embattled Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has bizarrely declared war on Elon Muskand challenged him to a fight after claiming the Tesla and SpaceX CEO is behind the widespread speculation that this weekend's election was rigged.

In a long, rambling speech broadcast on state television yesterday, Maduro hit out at the tech mogul, claiming his social media platform X was fabricating claims the election was stolen and labelling him an 'arch enemy' of Venezuela and a 'representation of fascism and the extreme right'.

'Social media creates a virtual reality, and who controls the virtual reality? Our new archenemy, the famous Elon Musk,' Maduro, 61, stated. 'He would like to invade Venezuela with his rockets and armies... we knew you were behind the whole lot.

'Do you want to fight? Let's do it. Elon Musk, I'm ready. I'm not afraid of you, Elon Musk. Let's fight, wherever you want,' he concluded.

Musk, 53, has not directly responded to Maduro's challenge but has published a slew of posts on X claiming that the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, won the election with an overwhelming majority.

He also shared a post from opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, along with a wanted poster of Maduro from the US State Department related to charges of narco-terrorism.

Venezuela's electoral authority declared Sunday that Maduro had won a third term with 51% of votes to extend a quarter-century of socialist rule - but the opposition says Gonzalez had more than twice as many votes as Maduro based on the 90% of vote tallies it has been able to access.

Protesters took to the streets for a second straight day across Venezuela yesterday, demanding that Maduro acknowledge he lost Sunday's election to the opposition as major international observers concluded the vote was undemocratic.

The enraged demonstrators have blocked roads, lit fires and thrown petrol bombs at police, who responded by firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowds of rioters.

At least 11 people have been killed in different parts of the country since the election in incidents related to the count or associated protests, according to rights group Foro Penal.

The U.S.-based Carter Center, which observed the vote, said in a statement late on Tuesday the election 'did not meet international standards of electoral integrity and cannot be considered democratic'.

The electoral authority's failure to publish disaggregated results amounts to a 'serious breach,' it added, outlining what it determined to be a deeply flawed process from start to finish.

Many countries have called on Venezuela to make the vote tally public and U.S. sources said Washington was considering fresh sanctions on individuals linked to the election unless there was greater transparency.

On Tuesday, both Maduro and his top legislative ally accused opposition presidential candidate Gonzalez and opposition leader Machado of fomenting violence in the aftermath of the vote.

In the same speech in which he condemned Musk, Maduro declared that opposition protesters had battered civilians and started fires, demanding that Gonzalez answer for them.

'Respond to that you coward!' Maduro shouted, after saying both Gonzalez and Machado should be held accountable.

Jorge Rodriguez, the head of the Congress for Maduro's ruling socialists, was more direct in a speech earlier in the day, insisting that both opposition figures must be arrested for the crimes of the protesters.

'Their bosses should go to prison,' he told lawmakers, accusing Gonzalez of leading a 'fascist conspiracy.'

Costa Rica said it was prepared to give political asylum to Machado and Gonzalez. On X, Machado thanked the government but said her priority was to 'continue this struggle' from Venezuela.

Opposition leader Machado was barred from running in the election but spearheaded Gonzalez's campaign. For the first time on Tuesday she accused Maduro's government of a corrupt vote count.

'What we are fighting here is a fraud by the regime,' Machado said, while urging peaceful protest.

A large crowd, many waving Venezuelan flags, chanted: 'We are not afraid!'

'Edmundo is the president. We know he won the election,' said 27-year-old brokerage worker Andrea Garcia. 'We want to live in the Venezuela that our parents had, where there wasn't hunger in the streets.'

The embattled Maduro, who also called for more marches, said in his speech that his government was reaching out to both China and Russia for help with alleged attacks on the electoral authority's systems, blaming Musk for spreading criticism of the election without presenting evidence.

Echoing other officials, Maduro's defence minister, General Vladimir Padrino, declared that there was a 'coup in progress' but insisted that the country's armed forces would help defeat it.

The 61-year-old president is a former union leader and foreign minister who won an election after former President Hugo Chavez's death in 2013. Maduro was re-elected in 2018 in a vote the opposition says was fraudulent.

He has presided over an economic collapse and a mass exodus of Venezuelans, while U.S. and EU sanctions have crippled an already struggling oil industry.

A Maduro win could spur more migration from Venezuela, once the continent's wealthiest country, which in recent years has seen a third of its population leave.

The opposition has long denounced obstacles over candidate registrations, detentions of opposition members and even a confusing ballot lay-out.

The Carter Center agreed with those criticisms in its statement.

'Authorities frequently attempted to restrict the opposition's campaign activities,' it said. 'This included harassment or intimidation of people who provided services or goods to the main opposition campaign.'

The CNE electoral authority, which formally proclaimed Maduro president for the 2025-2031 term on Monday, demonstrated clear bias in his favour, the Center added, while in-country voters faced short registration deadlines and most of the country's large diaspora was disenfranchised arbitrarily.

But the opposition's options going forward appear limited given the military has shown no sign it will break from its long-standing support for Maduro and previous cycles of anti-government protests and sanctions have failed to dislodge him.

In Coro, capital of Venezuela's Falcon state, on the Caribbean coast, protesters cheered when they tore down a statue of Chavez, Maduro's mentor who ruled from 1999-2013.

Amid the duelling protests which saw anti-Maduro citizens clash with the president's supporters security agents arrested at least two more opposition leaders.

Voluntad Popular's national coordinator Freddy Superlano was detained, as was Ricardo Estevez, a senior official with Vente Venezuela, the parties said in posts on X.

Many Venezuelans have said any decision they make on whether to join the exodus from the country would be dependent on the election.

'It feels like I no longer have anything to do here in Venezuela,' said 23-year-old graduate Jorge Salcedo in Caracas.

'We'll start from scratch in another country... We live in a country with repression, and we live in a country under dictatorship. It was our last chance.'