Venezuelan president bans
Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has issued a decree banning Elon Musk’s X platform from his country for 10 days. The move follows a bitter war of words with the tech billionaire in the aftermath of Venezuela’s disputed election last month. Mr Musk, 53, who bought the social media company formerly known as Twitter in 2022, branded Mr Maduro’s re-election a sham. The president, 61, responded by accusing Mr Musk of inciting “hatred, fascism and civil war”. “Elon Musk is the owner of X and has violated all the rules of the social network itself,” said Mr Maduro in a speech broadcast on state television on Thursday night. “X get out of Venezuela for 10 days!” he shouted. The row began when Mr Maduro declared himself the winner of the July 28 presidential election with some 51 per cent of the vote despite opposition claims he lost the vote by a more than 2-to-1 margin. Mr Musk immediately posted on X that there had been “major election fraud by Maduro”, adding: “Shame on Dictator