Maduro accuses US, Elon Musk of leading coup attempts in Venezuela

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has accused the US and right-wing American tech entrepreneur Elon Musk of attempting to engineer coups in his country which grapples with post-election violence.

“It is a coup orchestrated by the United States and Elon Musk, [Argentinean President Javier] Milei and other ... right-wing fascists,” Maduro asserted.

“They are attempting to direct a sequel of the `Guaido’ movie,” the Venezuelan leader said in reference to the 2019 events when dozens of US-led Western countries decided to recognize Juan Guaido as the “puppet” president of Venezuela.

“They used the election campaign in an effort to establish a new force,” Maduro said as he called on the people of the Bolivarian republic to be more aware of the past enemy tactics and not fall for US attempts to impose another US “puppet” like Guaido.

Venezuela’s presidential election was held last week. After counting the ballots, the National Electoral Council announced that Maduro won the election with around 52 percent of the votes. His far-right opponent, Edmundo Gonzalez, had only garnered 43 percent of the ballots.

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However, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed that there was "overwhelming evidence" Venezuela's opposition won the recent presidential election.

The US State Department later said Blinken had spoken to González to congratulate him "for receiving the most votes".

On Friday, Venezuela's election authority ratified Maduro's victory. The Venezuelan president accused the opposition of producing fake evidence to contest the result of the election and said the US was behind what he described as a farce and a coup attempt.

In a media conference, he also blamed the opposition for spreading false information and encouraging violence in Venezuela.

Maduro reacted to Blinken's remarks, saying "the US should stay out of Venezuela's internal affairs."

"The US emerges to declare that there is another president in Venezuela. The US should stay out of Venezuela's internal affairs," he said.

However, Musk also entered the fray, taking the side of the opposition on his popular X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.

“Maduro, leave! ... the world is waiting for you to recognize the defeat after years of socialism, misery, decadence and death,” Musk wrote.

Following Musk’s X posts, Maduro responded on national television, blacklisting him as the “archenemy” of the Latin American nation.

“Social media creates a virtual reality, and who controls the virtual reality? Our new archenemy, the famous Elon Musk,” he said at the beginning of his speech.

“Do you want to fight? Let’s do it. Elon Musk, I’m ready,” Maduro said.

Since the late Hugo Chavez passed the torch of anti-imperialism to his protege in 2013, Maduro has faced and neutralized numerous threats and plots hatched against his government.

Maduro’s leadership has been repeatedly targeted by the right-wing opposition forces. Venezuela’s US-backed opposition planned to overthrow Maduro’s government by staging angry mass protests over the collapse of Caracas’ oil-rich economy plunging the nation into economic hardship.

However, Maduro has retained his power, succeeding in foiling all the schemes planned against him, and he also survived a drone assassination attempt on his life.

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