Tesla denies report claiming board looked to replace Elon Musk

Tesla has denied a report that its board sought to replace Elon Musk as its chief executive amid a backlash against his rightwing politics and declining car sales.

Robyn Denholm, the chair of the board at the electric carmaker, said in a statement on Tesla’s social media account on X: “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 Elon Musk and the Board is highly confident in his ability to continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

It followed a Wall Street Journal story published on Wednesday that claimed “board members” had contacted headhunters to recruit a successor about a month ago.

The reported move came as tensions grew at Tesla around falling profits and criticism of Musk for spending much of his time in Washington, where he has been helping Donald Trump slash federal spending as de facto head of the “department of government efficiency” (Doge).

It is unclear in the report whether these members were acting on behalf of the board as a collective, or if it was only some of them taking steps to find a new chief executive. The Tesla board is made up of eight people, including Elon Musk himself, his brother, Kimbal Musk, and James Murdoch, son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Tesla has been hit by a widespread backlash against Musk’s recent political activity, not only against his Doge work, but also his public support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party before German national elections in February. Sales of the electric car have dropped in some of its biggest markets and there have been political protests at some of its showrooms.

Last week, the company reported that profits had dropped by 71% in the first quarter of this year to $409m (£307m), compared with $1.39bn in the same period in 2024. Meanwhile, Tesla’s stock has suffered, with the company losing about a quarter of its market value this year.

Musk told investors that starting from May he would be “allocating far more of my time to Tesla”. He is scheduled to leave Doge on 30 May, according to a strict 130-day cap on his service as a special government employee.

There have long been concerns around the demands on Musk’s time. As well as Tesla, he oversees four other companies, including the space exploration company SpaceX and the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Musk denounced the Wall Street Journal report on X on Thursday. He wrote: “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!”