Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro signed a decree blocking access to social media platform X, formerly Twitter, for 10 days following a public hearing with owner Elon Musk.
The disagreement between the two began after Maduro was declared the winner of last month’s disputed presidential election.
Musk described the Venezuelan leader as a “dictator” and a “clown,” while Maduro accused Musk of inciting “hate, fascism, and civil war.”
In recent weeks, anti-government protests have flared up across Venezuela due to the election results, and hundreds of people have been arrested by Venezuelan security forces.
Independent observers described the July 28 vote as “undemocratic,” and the main opposition said it had evidence that its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, had won by a wide margin. Maduro claimed that the country’s electoral authority, the National Electoral Council (CNE), was the target of a “cyber coup” during the election and accused Musk of launching an “attack” on his re-election bid.
In a speech broadcast on state television Thursday night, Maduro said the state agency in charge of telecommunications would “withdraw X” from use.
“Elon Musk is the owner of X and he broke all the rules. He broke the rules by causing hatred, fascism, civil war, death, conflict to Venezuelans and he broke all Venezuelan laws,” Maduro said.
Before the elections, Musk openly supported the candidate of the opposition, and after the elections and all the atmosphere created around the election results, Musk wrote: “Shame on the dictator Maduro”.
He also compared Maduro’s intelligence to that of a donkey and said that “the people of Venezuela have had enough of this clown,” reports the BBC.
