Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz recently mocked Tesla and CEO Elon Musk over the company’s stock dropping while seemingly ignoring the fact that Minnesota’s state pension fund contained sizable shares of Tesla stock.
During a Tuesday town hall in Wisconsin, Walz said that he checks the value of Tesla’s stock when he needs “a little boost.” Walz’s state, however, had 1.6 million shares of Tesla stock in its retirement fund as of June 2024, directly impacting public workers such as teachers and first responders.
“Some of you know this, on the iPhone, they’ve got that little stock app,” Walz said Tuesday. “I added Tesla to it to give me a little boost during the day — $225 and dropping. 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,” Walz added about Musk.
Musk recently told employees to hang on to their Tesla stock after the company’s shares dropped more than 50% in just three months, Bloomberg reported Friday. Shortly after Walz’s diss about Tesla stocks, Musk took to social media to jab at Walz over his failed 2024 vice presidential campaign.
“Sometimes when I need a little boost, I look at the @JDVance portrait in the @WhiteHouse and thank the Lord,” Musk wrote in a March 19 post on X.
Investor Kevin O’Leary criticized Walz during a Thursday appearance on CNN over the governor’s recent comments about Tesla’s stock, calling it “beyond stupid.”
“That poor guy [Walz] didn’t check his portfolio and his own pension plan for the state,” O’Leary said. “It’s beyond stupid what he did.”
“What’s the matter with that guy?” O’Leary added. “He doesn’t check the well-being of his own constituents.”
Tesla dealerships and chargers across the U.S. have been hit with a wave of vandalism in recent weeks amid ongoing backlash against Musk due to his close ties to the White House and his efforts to eliminate wasteful spending across the federal government as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Notably, other blue states have previously invested in Tesla stocks alongside Minnesota, including Oregon, which has roughly $135.3 million in Tesla stocks in its state pension fund, which equates to 0.7% of the fund’s total public equity holdings, according to OregonLive. New York’s pension fund also possessed roughly $1.42 billion worth of Tesla stock as of December 2024, according to Pensions & Investments.
Still, many Democratic lawmakers have continued publicly criticizing Musk and Tesla, including Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who claimed in March that Musk “is a billionaire con man with a lot of money,” as well as Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who wrote in a Thursday post on X that President Donald Trump and Musk “turned the White House into a Tesla dealership. Is that where you want your taxpayer dollars going? Nope.”
Walz is currently embarking on a town hall tour of red districts across the U.S. The Minnesota governor could run for reelection in 2026, though he told The New Yorker in a March 2 interview that he would potentially consider launching a 2028 presidential bid if the conditions and his “skill set” were right.
Walz’s office did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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