Elon Musk Blasts Venezuela’s Maduro in an Escalating War of Words

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Elon Musk Blasts Venezuela’s Maduro in an Escalating War of Words

Over the last four days, Elon Musk has spoken out more than 50 times about President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela — and the comments have been far from flattering.

“Shame on Dictator Maduro,” Mr. Musk

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on X on Sunday, as results came in from Venezuela’s presidential election, which has been criticized as deeply flawed. The next morning, Mr. Musk

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that there had been “major election ****** by Maduro.” Since then, the world’s richest man has also compared Mr. Maduro to a donkey and suggested that he would be open to fighting the autocratic leader in hand-to-hand combat.

Mr. Musk, the 53-year-old chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, has often criticized heads of state, including President Biden, on X. But the attacks against Mr. Maduro, who is one of the prominent symbols of the left in ****** America, stood out for their sudden volume and aggression.

They were part of a pattern by Mr. Musk of denouncing leftist ideals and socialism. In Venezuela, he has said, he sees a ******* state with a collapsed economy that he blames on the *********** of leftist politicians. In some of his posts, Mr. Musk, who has endorsed former President Donald J. Trump in the U.S. presidential race, suggested that the ******* States could become like Venezuela if voters backed the Democratic Party in November.

In effect, Mr. Musk is using the firestorm over Venezuela’s election to reinforce his worldview that socialist and leftist forces are degrading global society, said Eugenia Mitchelstein, an associate professor at the University of San Andrés in Buenos Aires. Mr. Musk appears to have posted only once about Venezuelan politics before Sunday, she said, and is using the questions over the country’s election to “score very easy political points.”

“It’s the perfect case for him to be on the right side and to make allegiances to both the rule of law and right-wing politics,” Ms. Mitchelstein said.

Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

The ******* States and other countries have denounced Venezuela’s election results, which the country’s electoral authority claimed showed Mr. Maduro as the clear winner over the main opposition candidate, Edmundo González. New York Times reporters witnessed instances of voter intimidation, and the country’s electoral authority had not released a full vote count as of Wednesday.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Maduro responded to Mr. Musk’s comments by calling the tech billionaire a “*********.” He also accused Mr. Musk of financing protesters in Venezuela.

“Whoever messes with me becomes withered,” Mr. Maduro added.

Mr. Musk previously involved himself in ****** ********* politics through X, which he owns and has used to influence global politics. Mr. Musk, who has more than 192 million followers on X, has talked up Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil, and Javier Milei, the president of Argentina, on the platform. The governments of both men, who are conservatives, have offered business advantages to Tesla and SpaceX.

Mr. Musk has been less kind to ****** ********* leaders on the left. In 2020, he suggested that the ******* States could overthrow the socialist party that had been elected in Bolivia, a country with vast sources of lithium, which is a crucial component in Tesla’s car batteries.

“We will coup whoever we want!” Mr. Musk

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at the time. “Deal with it.”

Mr. Musk has little to lose financially by criticizing Mr. Maduro, who rose to power in 2013 and has deepened state control over Venezuela’s economy. Tesla has no manufacturing operations or stores in the country, though a handful of the company’s electric vehicles have been spotted on the streets of Caracas, the capital. Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, also isn’t officially available in Venezuela. And while X has long been used in Venezuela, including by Mr. Maduro, it has few advertisers that generate revenue for the platform.

Mr. Maduro’s X account, which has 4.8 million followers, does not have a gray check mark, which is typically reserved for government entities and politicians. It has a blue check mark, which can be obtained by paying a subscription fee to X.

Since Venezuela’s election, Mr. Musk has been on the ******* against Mr. Maduro, who has declared electoral victory. Apart from accusing Mr. Maduro of election ******, Mr. Musk has said a donkey knows more than the Venezuelan president and has shared videos of apparent protests and rallies for the country’s opposition party. Mr. Musk also criticized Mr. Maduro’s handling of the oil industry, and noted that it would take “several years to rebuild Venezuela’s oil production.”

“Maduro is not a good guy,” Mr. Musk

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on Tuesday. “Venezuela deserves much better.”

Mr. Musk could prove a useful foil for Mr. Maduro as the Venezuelan leader seeks to divert the focus from his opponents’ claims of electoral ******. Mr. Maduro’s immediate predecessor, Hugo Chávez, used such tactics, assailing U.S. diplomatic envoys and government officials to rile up his base. Mr. Maduro has publicly challenged Mr. Musk to a ******, calling him his “archenemy.”

“Do you want a ******? Let’s go for it, Elon Musk,” Mr. Maduro said on national television on Tuesday. “As we say here: If you want it, I want it.”

Mr. Musk, who said in the past that he would engage in physical combat against President

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of Russia and Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, responded on Wednesday on X. (He has not followed through on holding the fights.)

“I accept,” Mr. Musk

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. If Mr. Maduro loses, he added, the “dictator” will have to

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.

Genevieve Glatsky contributed reporting from Bogotá, Colombia.

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