Tesla is denying a Wednesday Wall Street Journal report that it’s looking to replace Elon Musk as CEO.
According to the report, which cited people familiar with the matter, Tesla board members had contacted several recruitment companies about a month ago to work on a formal process to find Tesla’s next chief executive. The sources stated that the board had narrowed its attention on one unnamed major search firm and had met with Musk last month to warn him that he needed to spend more time on Tesla.
Related: ‘They Need to Expand’: Tesla’s Annual Sales Declined For the First Time. Here’s Why.
Robyn Denholm, chair of Tesla’s board of directors, directly refuted the report in a post on X on Thursday, writing that The Journal was “absolutely false” in claiming that the Tesla Board had reached out to recruitment firms to start a CEO search, and said that “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,” Denholm added.
Musk also directly addressed the report, writing in a post on X on Thursday that it was an “extremely bad breach of ethics” that The Journal would “publish a deliberately false article and fail to include an unequivocal denial beforehand by the Tesla board of directors!”
He added in a follow-up post that the “WSJ is a discredit to journalism.”
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.
This is absolutely false (and this was communicated to the media before the report was published).
The CEO of Tesla is…
— Tesla (@Tesla) May 1, 2025
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! https://t.co/9xdypLGg3c
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 1, 2025
Since Musk began leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) earlier this year, there have been at least 80 reports of vandalism or arson of Tesla cars and mass protests at Tesla showrooms. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives recently wrote in a note to investors that Musk has caused “brand damage” to Tesla because of his involvement with DOGE.
“Musk needs to leave the government, take a major step back on DOGE, and get back to being CEO of Tesla full-time,” Ives wrote ahead of Tesla’s earnings report last week.
Tesla’s earnings showed that its first-quarter profit had declined by 71%, reaching $409 million in the first three months of the year compared to $1.4 billion in the first quarter of 2024.
In response, Musk said in the earnings call last week that he would spend “far more” of his time at Tesla starting in May, shifting his focus from leading DOGE to working on Tesla. He specified that he would spend “a day or two per week” overseeing DOGE starting in May, a downgrade from the 120 hours a week he reported spending on the department in February.
Musk is the richest person in the world at the time of writing, with a net worth of $333 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
