By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2026-07-18 18:26:51 | Updated at 2026-07-18 22:09:03
3 hours ago
The head of one of the country’s largest teachers unions name-dropped Elon Musk during a defiant speech this week that highlighted the organization's perceived enemies.
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten, 68, mentioned Musk and tech billionaire Jeff Yass during the animated Thursday speech.
She also singled out a conservative nonprofit largely credited with enabling corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited money on elections.
Weingarten bobbed and weaved as she spoke, urging thousands of educators, healthcare professionals, and public employees convened at AFT's annual national convention in DC to 'fight.'
'You, my friends, you have done it regardless of bad labor law. Regardless of Citizens United. Regardless of Elon Musk and Jeffrey Yass and everything that gets thrown at us because people in America want a union,' she said aggressively.
'And you have showed the way to get people the economic security and the dignity and the justice our members and working people in America so justly deserve.
'That's why I want to say thank you,' she concluded.
Both Musk and Yass have surfaced as two of the largest individual political donors in US elections as of late.
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten offered educators, healthcare professionals, and public employees convened at AFT's annual national convention in Washington, DC, a pugnacious speech about billionaire-backed attacks on Thursday
She named Elon Musk - a frequent supporter of conservative causes at odds with her union - as a major offender
Each have funded campaigns that put a premium on privatization and deregulation - causes at odds with AFT.
The union's 1.8 million educators have sought to protect policies surrounding taxpayer-funded education and social safety nets.
A Supreme Court ruling in 2010, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, allowed figures like Musk and Yass to provide endless funds with impunity.
Weingarten sees Musk's moves as a thinly veiled attempt to secure 'tax cuts for the rich,' she wrote in a March press release.
'The world's richest person is targeting me and other teachers because we are fighting for vital federal education programs that help families and students.
'They attack us because they want tax cuts for the rich.
'Stop taking money from poor kids and kids with disabilities,' she wrote.
AFT is the second-largest union for teachers in the US.
Weingarten, 68, and the 1.8 million educators have sought to protect policies surrounding taxpayer-funded education and social safety nets.
Weingarten has also warned against the effects of AI and screens on student learning.
'Students need their teachers - real human beings, not robots and not chatbots,' she said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington in May.
Musk, meanwhile, is looking to provide AI tutors for more than 1 million students in El Salvador, via his X chatbot Grok.
