Former Democratic Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips called out Gov. Tim Walz over recent comments he made regarding Tesla stock and Elon Musk.
During a town hall event in Wisconsin on March 18, Walz expressed satisfaction over Tesla’s stock decline, saying, “They’ve got that little stock app. I added Tesla to it to give me a little boost during the day. 225 and dropping.”
This came despite the fact that the Minnesota State Board of Investment, chaired by Walz, had significant investments in Tesla as of June 2024.
Walz then claimed during a town hall Saturday in Minnesota that he was “making a joke” with his Tesla comments.
The Minnesota governor also faced criticism when he referred to Musk as a “South African nepo baby” at a March 14 town hall in Iowa.
On March 19, Phillips responded to Walz’s remarks on X, writing, “Objecting to his initiative is one thing, but calling Elon Musk, a US citizen who’s built some of the most innovative companies in world history, a ‘South African nepo baby’, is a great way to lose even more Democrats.”
In a NewsNation interview, Phillips stated, “What I saw my governor and friend Tim Walz say today was appalling.” He added, “Not only does that hurt a lot of Minnesotans who have their money in pension funds, it hurts Tesla employees.”
Phillips continued, emphasizing the importance of respecting American companies: “This is one of the world’s foremost innovative companies, based in the United States of America. No elected official should ever demean an American company like that. It’s nonsensical.”
Phillips went on to address Walz’s characterization of Musk, stating, “And then to call him a South African nepo baby? He’s an American citizen for 20 years. He’s built some of the most extraordinary companies in the world.”
“Call him what you wall. You can disagree with his initiative, DOGE, but my goodness, my party should be condemning it, not celebrating it,” Phillips continued.
In the same interview on NewsNation, celebrity fitness expert and host of the Keeping it Real podcast, Jillian Michaels, added her perspective on the state of modern politics, saying, “There is a blind allegiance, in particular on the left, a tribalism that is running rampant, where people think they’re right, that the world is ending, and they must resist at all costs. And they’ve been given this common enemy with all of this fear-mongering in the form of Elon Musk. It is completely irrational.”
Phillips concluded the interview with concerns about the Democratic Party’s current leadership. “If you look at some of the clips you just ran—Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Jim Clyburn—these are people who have dedicated a lot of their years to the U.S. Congress and our country, but my goodness, look at what that shows about the Democratic Party. We do not have our young, next generation bench ready to go,” he explained.
“That was again, a failure, of that last 2024 lack of a primary,” said Phillips, who challenged former President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary last year. “We did not introduce to the country new Democrats, and we failed miserably. It was so predictable. And now all of the arsonists are pretending to be firefighters.”
Symone Harms
Symone Harms is a Media Production and Business Marketing student at Bethel University. She is actively involved in The Royals Investment Fund, The 25, theatre, and other leadership positions. She also cohosts Rooted, a podcast dedicated to being rooted in truth, growing in freedom, and prospering in life. A Minnesota native with a passion for storytelling and digital media, she aspires to a career in broadcasting as a news anchor and reporter.
