He bolstered his portfolio with the purchase of SolarCity in 2016 and cemented his standing as a leader of industry by taking on an advisory role in the early days of President Donald Trump's administration.movement. The election had been widely viewed as a referendum on Maduro’s presidency. Having secured a majority in the 167-seat legislature,

Social unrest, looting, and violence were on the rise, and in April the government was forced to reduce its workweek to two days in order to save energy (partly because of shortages of hydroelectric power brought about by El Niño-derived drought). Meanwhile, the opposition pushed forward with an effort to put Maduro to a recall vote. By early May

A smooth Venezuelan election that would have led to greater economic opening also suited the country’s Latin American neighbors, including Mr. Maduro’s old allies, the leftist governments of Brazil and Colombia."Many of us, even if we have university degrees, have to work in whatever we can to survive and to support our families who're still in

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.In 2016 a group of Venezuelans asked the National Assembly to investigate whether Maduro was Colombian in an open letter addressed to the National Assembly president Henry

Opposition leaders in Venezuela delivered a May 2016 petition to the National Electoral Council (CNE) calling for a recall referendum, with the populace to vote on whether to remove Maduro from office.[84] On 5 July 2016, the Venezuelan intelligence service detained five opposition activists involved with the recall referendum, with two other activ