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By Rachel Dobkin
Weekend Reporter
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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has temporarily suspended X, formerly Twitter, after a spat with X owner and billionaire Elon Musk.
Musk has been a vocal critic of Maduro following Venezuela's presidential election on July 28, in which Maduro was declared the winner by the national electoral authority, which has yet to show the voting tallies. In a post on X a day after the election, Musk accused Maduro of "major election fraud." He has also called Maudro a dictator and a clown.
"Elon Musk is the owner of X and has violated all the rules of the social network itself," Maduro said in speech on Thursday night, according to the Associated Press (AP). "X get out of Venezuela for 10 days!"
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Maduro added that Musk "has incited hatred."
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By Thursday night, X posts had stopped loading on two private telephone services and state-owned Movilnet, according to AP journalists in Caracas.
Maduro said he signed a resolution "with the proposal made by CONATEL, the National Telecommunications Commission, which has decided to remove the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, from circulation in Venezuela for 10 days so that they can present their documents."
The Venezuelan president, the leader of the United Socialist Party, has been in power since 2013 after former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez died. Chávez was president of Venezuela from 1999 until 2013 and was the leader of the United Socialist Party since its inception in 2007.
Maudro's opposition, led by Edmundo González, the Democratic Unitary Platform candidate, has claimed to have collected records from over 80 percent of the 30,000 electronic voting machines nationwide showing that González is the rightful winner of the election.
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has said that it believes González is the winner of the election.
"Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela's July 28 presidential election," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a press release on August 1.
Blinken continued: "Now is the time for the Venezuelan parties to begin discussions on a respectful, peaceful transition in accordance with Venezuelan electoral law and the wishes of the Venezuelan people."
Large protests broke out in Venezuela following the election, prompting Colombian President Gustavo Petro and several other foreign leaders to call on Maduro to release detailed vote counts from the contest.
"The serious doubts that are established around the Venezuelan electoral process can lead its people to a deep violent polarization with serious consequences of permanent division," Petro, a Maduro ally, wrote on X.
Petro added: "I invite the Venezuelan government to allow the elections to end in peace, allowing a transparent vote count...and professional international supervision."
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