Venezuelan President Challenges Elon Musk To A Fight, Accuses Him Of Wanting To Invade His Country With ‘Space Rockets’

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, known for his business ventures, has found himself at the center of potential challenges from two unlikely opponents: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Maduro, the recently re-elected Venezuelan leader who faces allegations of electoral fraud, has directly challenged Musk to a fight, and labeled the tech mogul as his “archenemy.”

In a series of bold statements, Maduro declared, “Social media creates a virtual reality, and who controls the virtual reality? Our new archenemy, the famous Elon Musk.”

He continued, “Do you want to fight? Let’s do it. Elon Musk, I’m ready. I’m not afraid of you, Elon Musk. Let’s fight, wherever you want.” The Venezuelan president also accused Musk of wanting to “invade Venezuela with his space rockets.”

Musk’s criticism of the Venezuelan election results, in which he referred to Maduro as a “dictator” and accused him of “major election fraud,” appears to have provoked Maduro’s combative response.

The election results, which showed Maduro secured 51% of the vote, have been disputed by international observers and the opposition, who have called on the military to intervene. Opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez received 44% of the votes, according to the council, although the results came after a long delay. Pre-election polls had shown Gonzalez to have a sizable lead over Maduro.

Maduro has been in office since 2013. In that time, the country has seen a staggering economic collapse and more than eight million citizens have left.

Strangely, Musk has once again attempted to lure Meta CEO Zuckerberg into a cage match, and reiterated his challenge with the statement, “I’ll fight Zuckerberg anyplace, anytime, any rules.” This is not the first time Musk has publicly challenged Zuckerberg, to which the Meta CEO has responded with a lack of enthusiasm, and simply asked, “Are we really doing this again?”