Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Tesla’s chief Elon Musk lashed out at Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on Friday, calling him “a huge jerk” after the Democrat mocked the electric vehicle maker’s share price earlier this month.
Walz, who ran alongside Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, took aim at Tesla’s stock performance during a Wisconsin event earlier this month, when shares were trading at $225 — down 54% from their record high late last year.
“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 on stage. “And if you own one, we’re not blaming you. You can take dental floss and pull the Tesla thing off.”
Amid criticism, Walz later attempted to walk back the comments earlier this week at a town hall event in Minnesota.
“This guy bugs me in a way that’s probably unhealthy,” Walz said, referring to Musk. “I have to be careful about being a smarta–. I was making a joke. These people have no sense of humor. They are the most literal people.”
“But my point was, they’re all mad, and I said something I probably shouldn’t have about a company,” he added.
Musk fired back in an interview with Fox News.
“I mean, you have Tim Walz, who’s a huge jerk, you know, running around on stage with the Tesla stock price, where the stock price had gone in half, and he was overjoyed,” Musk said. “What an evil thing to do. What a creep. What a jerk.
Like, who derives joy from that? Does that sound like a good person to you? I don’t think so,” he added.
The Minnesota State Board of Investment, which manages the state’s pension assets, held 1.6 million Tesla shares in its retirement portfolio as of its most recent report.
In the same interview, Musk said his involvement in government matters has hurt, rather than helped, his businesses.
“It is actually disadvantageous for me to be in the government, not advantageous,” he said. “My companies are suffering because I’m in the government,” pointing to a wave of attacks targeting Tesla vehicle owners, showrooms and charging stations.
“Do you think it helps sales if, you know, dealerships are being fire bombed? Of course, not.”
Earlier this week, Musk also commented on the Trump administration’s new 25% tariff on foreign-made vehicles and parts. While the measure is seen as favorable to domestic automakers, Musk said Tesla is “not unscathed.”
“To be clear, this will affect the price of parts in Tesla cars that come from other countries. The cost impact is not trivial,” he wrote on X. In a separate post, he added: “Important to note that Tesla is NOT unscathed here. The tariff impact on Tesla is still significant.”
Tesla shares fell 3.5% Friday to close at $263. In after-hours trading, the stock slid a further 1.3% to just above $260 after Musk announced that his artificial intelligence company, xAI, acquired X, his social media platform, in an all-stock deal.
“The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt),” Musk wrote on X.
Tesla shares are down 34.7% year-to-date.
