{"id":393481,"date":"2026-01-05T16:35:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T16:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/393481\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T16:35:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T16:35:05","slug":"elon-musk-backs-trump-who-vows-to-run-venezuela-and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/393481\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk Backs Trump Who Vows to &#8216;Run&#8217; Venezuela And\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/donald-trump-elon-musk.png\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The often volatile alliance between the world&#8217;s richest man and the world&#8217;s most powerful leader appears to have entered a new, harmonious chapter, signalled by a single, potent digital gesture. Elon Musk, the mercurial owner of X (formerly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ibtimes.co.uk\/topics\/twitter\" data-sys=\"1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Twitter<\/a>), has updated his profile picture to a stark image of the American flag \u2014 a move widely interpreted as a silent but significant endorsement of President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ibtimes.co.uk\/topics\/donald-trump\" data-sys=\"1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Donald Trump<\/a>&#8216;s audacious military intervention in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ibtimes.co.uk\/topics\/venezuela\" data-sys=\"1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Venezuela<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This symbolic realignment comes after a rocky period for the pair, suggesting that the feud which erupted last July, when Trump accused the 54-year-old tech mogul of &#8216;using&#8217; him for political gain, has been firmly consigned to history. The timing of Musk&#8217;s patriotic profile update is hardly coincidental.<\/p>\n<p>It lands precisely as the 79-year-old commander-in-chief executes one of the most aggressive foreign policy manoeuvres in decades: the capture and extraction of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. In a dawn raid that has sent shockwaves through the international community, US forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their residence on a military base. They were initially transferred to a US warship before being flown to New York, where they now face grave narco-terrorism charges alleging decades of involvement in cocaine trafficking.<\/p>\n<p>Elon Musk Signals Approval of Bold Trump Doctrine<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/elon-musk-accuses-bill-clinton-importing-thousands-somalians.png\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"\/><\/p>\n<p>For Elon Musk, a figure who often positions himself as a champion of Western values and bold, disruptive action, Trump&#8217;s decisive strike appears to have resonated. The operation, the result of months of secret planning by the administration, recalls the interventionist zeal of the 2003 Iraq invasion, removing a sitting head of state with surgical, if controversial, precision.<\/p>\n<p>By donning the Stars and Stripes on his platform, Musk seems to be aligning himself with this projection of American strength, effectively burying the hatchet with a president who has just fundamentally reshaped the geopolitical landscape of South America.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago resort mere hours after the operation, President Trump wasted no time in outlining a vision that is as commercially ambitious as it is politically explosive. &#8216;We&#8217;re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,&#8217; he declared to reporters.<\/p>\n<p>His plan extends far beyond regime change; the US intends to &#8216;fix&#8217; Venezuela&#8217;s dilapidated oil infrastructure and sell &#8216;large amounts&#8217; of oil on the global market. For a business titan like Elon Musk, whose empire is built on energy and engineering, such a pragmatic, resource-focused approach to nation-building likely holds a certain grim logic.<\/p>\n<p>Global Fallout Challenges Elon Musk and US Narrative<\/p>\n<p>However, the path ahead is fraught with complexity. While the president insists the move serves as a stark warning to those who threaten American sovereignty, the backlash has been immediate. Venezuelan authorities have condemned the operation as an &#8216;imperialist attack&#8217;, citing airstrikes on civilian and military targets, while the country&#8217;s vice president has demanded Maduro&#8217;s immediate release, insisting he remains the legitimate leader. Despite Trump&#8217;s assertion that US forces are already &#8216;in place&#8217; to manage the transition, there are currently few definitive signs on the ground of an active US administration running the country.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/united-states-armed-conflict-drug-cartels-nicolas-maduros-venezuela-drug-cartels.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"\/><\/p>\n<p>As Maduro prepares to face a federal court in New York next week on charges of drug trafficking and illegal weapons possession, the world watches with bated breath. The alignment of Elon Musk \u2014 a man who controls a massive global communications platform \u2014 with Trump&#8217;s aggressive new doctrine adds another layer of intrigue to an unfolding crisis. If the tech billionaire is indeed back &#8216;on the same page&#8217; as the president, their combined influence over the narrative of this intervention could be as significant as the military operation itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The often volatile alliance between the world&#8217;s richest man and the world&#8217;s most powerful leader appears to have&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,1348,3355,3359,3353,44,3356,3354,3357,128,285,3358,1346],"class_list":["post-393481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-breaking-news","tag-daily-news","tag-global-news","tag-inkl","tag-news","tag-news-app","tag-news-headlines","tag-news-today","tag-science","tag-space","tag-today-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}