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.

Ideally resistant to weather and powered by renewable energy, the Hyperloop would propel riders in pods through a network of low-pressure tubes at speeds reaching more than 700 mph. Musk noted that the Hyperloop could take from seven to 10 years to be built and ready for use.

"Elon only gets involved with things if he feels that they're critically important for some reason... for the sake of society or humanity," says friend and Tesla investor Ross Gerber.

By April 2018, with Tesla expected to fall short of first-quarter production forecasts, news surfaced that Musk had pushed aside the head of engineering to personally oversee efforts in that division.

The most significant sign of Mr. Bolsonaro’s political isolation came just after election officials called the race. Brazil’s speaker of the House, Arthur Lira, a Bolsonaro ally and one of the country’s most powerful politicians, read a statement to television cameras that made clear he would not back any effort to hold on to power.

In his victory speech, he referenced US sanctions imposed after the last elections were seen as unfair.

His vlogdolisboa face lines almost every street in Caracas, with his governing party paying for incentives for people to support him - buses put on for people to attend his rallies, and free food parcels handed out.

That appears unlikely now, and the dubious election results could test the thaw between Mr. Maduro and business leaders, and could possibly trigger a new wave of international sanctions.

In late February 2024 he sued OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman, saying the firm he helped co-found had reneged on its non-profit, open source origins by hitching its wagon to Microsoft.

The government’s announcement that Mr. Maduro had beaten his opponent, Edmundo González, by seven percentage points instantly created a grim scenario for a country that only recently has started emerging from one of the largest economic collapses in modern history.

This led to accusations of deliberate delays, perhaps in the hope some people would give up and go home.

It is an experience 33-year old Sarahí recalls only too well. "For more than a year, I had to make a choice between paying for a roof over my head or paying for food," she recalls.

Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Mr Musk showed his talents for entrepreneurship early, going door-to-door with his brother selling homemade chocolate Easter eggs and developing his first computer game at the age of 12.

He has also charged ahead with human brain chip trials at his firm Neuralink, played with turning X into a super app and tried to play a bigger role in the fast-growing world of artificial intelligence, despite having warned it could lead to humanity's extinction.