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Tesla (TSLA) is denying a new report that its board of directors explored replacing Elon Musk as chief executive.
The Wall Street Journal (NWS), citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, reported late Wednesday that board members reached out to several executive search firms about a month ago to inquire about finding a new CEO. The outreach came as Tesla’s stock price cratered amid Musk’s controversial role heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under President Donald Trump. Tesla had narrowed its focus to a major search firm, The Journal reported.
Robyn Denholm, the chair of Tesla’s board, denied the report early Thursday.
“Earlier today, there was a media report erroneously claiming that the Tesla Board had contacted recruitment firms to initiate a CEO search at the company,” Denholm said in a statement that Tesla posted on X. “This is absolutely false (and this was communicated to the media before the report was published). The CEO of Tesla is Elon Musk and the Board is highly confident in his ability to continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead.”
Musk also weighed in on X, writing “It is an EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS that the @WSJ would publish a DELIBERATELY FALSE ARTICLE and fail to include an unequivocal denial beforehand by the Tesla board of directors!”
The Journal said that it reached out to Musk for the story but that he didn’t respond.
Tesla’s first-quarter earnings report this year was dismal. Net income sank 71%, while the company missed estimates on revenue and adjusted earnings per share amid slowing sales, consumer pushback to Musk’s cost-cutting and job-slashing role, tariffs, and more.
The first thing Musk talked about on last Tuesday’s earnings call actually had nothing to do with Tesla and everything to do with his role in the Trump administration. Musk told investors that he would scale back his role in DOGE to a day or two a week starting sometime next month, or as much as Trump wants him around.
“Starting next month,” he said on the earnings call, “I’ll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla.”
Any change to Tesla’s leadership would be huge: Musk has been at the helm of the company for 20 years.