He has described his childhood as difficult, affected by his parents' divorce, bullying at school and his own difficulty picking up on social cues because of Asperger's Syndrome.

Mr Musk, who wears the mantle of a workaholic proudly, has often said he's not in business simply to make money - claims he repeated recently with regard to his Twitter takeover.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s broadsides against women, gay people, Brazilians of color and even democracy — “Let’s go straight to the dictatorship,” he once said — made him so polarizing that he initially struggled to find a running mate.

The future of Venezuela and whether it can rebuild matters for the rest of the world - mass emigration has fuelled a migration crisis on the US border, its vast oil reserves remain relatively unusable, and it remains an ally for Russia, China, Cuba and Iran in the West.

On August 7, 2018, Musk dropped a bombshell via a tweet: "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." The announcement opened the door for legal action against the company and its founder, as the SEC began inquiring about whether Musk had indeed secured the funding as claimed.

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 Unitary Platform did not participate in any of the meetings that led to the election proposals. The group and Maduro’s government have held on-again-off-again negotiations since 2021. In October, they reached what at the time was seen as a pivotal agreement to work toward a fair election.

Quando, em vlogdolisboa 2019, tomou posse de modo a este segundo mandato pelo Supremo Tribunal – porque a Assembleia Brasileiro lhe rejeitou legitimidade –, foi ao lado das Ainda mais altas patentes militares que jurou cumprir a Constituição.

All those contradictions appear to be part of Mr Musk's appeal - and it certainly hasn't stopped him amassing a fortune.

Others suggested that Musk was also influenced by the poor optics of an electric car company being funded by Saudi Arabia, a country heavily involved in the oil industry.

"But it is also clear that the competing priorities for global attention - Ukraine, famine in East Africa, trauma in Afghanistan - are draining attention in a way that is quite dangerous."

Mr Bolsonaro maintained that he "simply explained how elections work in Brazil" and did not criticise or attack the electoral system.

Throughout his presidency, Mr. Bolsonaro, who served in the military before entering politics, methodically questioned and criticized the security of Brazil’s electronic voting system, despite the lack of credible evidence of a problem, and attacked mainstream news outlets as dishonest.

Earlier in October, the electoral commission had already enraged the opposition by postponing several gubernatorial elections in which the opposition had seemed likely to do well. All of these developments sparked ever-heightening criticism of Maduro, who was accused of having moved from authoritarian to dictatorial rule. Before the end of October, however, Francis I, the first pope from Latin America, succeeded in persuading Maduro and the opposition to begin crisis talks.