Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro has blocked X in the country for 10 days after claiming that the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, had incited hatred and violated his own social network’s rules. Musk condemned Maduro as a dictator and accused him of committing major election fraud. Maduro argued that his rivals were using X to stoke political unrest, leading him to approve a proposal to remove the platform from circulation. The Associated Press reported that journalists in Venezuela were unable to access X after the ban was announced. While Musk may have exacerbated tensions in Venezuela, Maduro could be using him as a scapegoat to justify blocking X and silencing discussion of the disputed election results. Independent polls and voting machine data suggest that Maduro’s opposition, Edmundo González, received more votes than the incumbent, but the national electoral council claimed Maduro won with 52 percent of the vote versus González’s 43 percent, without providing required voting tallies.
