White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt berated former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s “sad existence” Wednesday after he celebrated the decline in Tesla’s stock.
Walz, the current Democrat governor of Minnesota, said he is rooting for the fall in Tesla stock, which has declined by 40% in 2025, simply just to spite the company’s CEO, Elon Musk. Leavitt said it is “quite sad” for the governor of Minnesota to celebrate the financial downturns of a U.S.-based car company and said he is living a “sad existence” since losing the 2024 election.
“Tim Walz said last night that he frequently checks Tesla’s stock and doing so to ‘give [him] a little boost throughout the day.’ How should Americans view politicians who take pride in the downfall of an American car company?” a reporter asked.
“I think it’s quite sad, but I think that Governor Walz unfortunately is living a sad existence after his devastating defeat on Nov. 5,” Leavitt said.
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Walz stated Tuesday that he takes “great pleasure” in imagining Musk’s life becoming “very, very difficult.”
“Some of you know this, on the iPhone, they’ve got that little stock app. I added Tesla to it to give me a little boost during the day — $225 and dropping,” Walz said. “And if you own one, we’re not blaming you. You can take dental floss and pull the Tesla thing off. I’m not a vindictive person or anything but I take great pleasure in the fact that this guy’s life is going to get very, very difficult.”
The American car company employed over 121,800 workers as of June 2024, a 14% decrease from the 140,000 of employees in December 2023, according to SEO.AI. Tesla expanded to 47,000 California-based employees in 2022 and became the third-largest employer in Austin, Texas, with 23,000 workers, Austin American-Statesman reported in April.
Walz has been engaging in a media blitz in red districts across the U.S. and expressed interest in launching a 2028 presidential campaign if the conditions and his “skill set” were right.
Tesla dealerships and charges have been vandalized by anti-Musk individuals to retaliate against Musk’s role in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which intends to eliminate wasteful and fraudulent government spending. Leavitt told Daily Caller White House correspondent Reagan Reese during Wednesday’s briefing that the White House condemns these “despicable” actions against “innocent Americans.”
Firefighters and police said they found seven Tesla superchargers on fire in Littleton, Massachusetts, at around 1:00 a.m. on Monday, which was determined to be intentional. Protesters vandalized a Baltimore County Tesla dealership on Saturday and Saturday, and others graffitied “No Musk” and an image of either a swastika or an X on the dealership in Owings Mills, Maryland, according to CBS News.
Police arrested a 40-year-old in Loveland, Colorado, after being caught carrying explosives at a Tesla dealership in the area.
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