Tesla’s board chair has denied that the company ever considered replacing Elon Musk as CEO amid a stock price slump and global brand crisis sparked by his work at DOGE.
Robyn Denholm said on Wednesday that the board had high confidence in the billionaire’s leadership, after The Wall Street Journal reported that board members had searched for a new CEO.
The Journal reported that as Tesla’s stock price plunged in March and April amid collapsing sales and public blowback over Musk’s work at DOGE, unnamed Tesla board members reached out to recruitment firms to work on a process to select Tesla’s next CEO.
Board members had also told Musk he needed to spend more time at Tesla and reaffirm his commitment to the company publicly, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the discussions.
In Tesla’s first quarter earnings last week, Musk announced he would step back from his White House role in May and allocate more time to leading Tesla, with the company’s stock price surging in response.
In a post on Tesla’s X account on Wednesday, chairwoman Robyn Denholm called the Journal report “absolutely false.”
“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,” said Denholm. Musk also denied the article in a post on X.
It comes amid a rocky start to the year for Tesla.
The automaker has been hit by a global wave of protests over Musk’s role in cutting the federal workforce, which has also turned its vehicles into targets for vandalism and pushed some owners to sell up.
The brand crisis has fuelled a sales collapse, with Tesla reporting its lowest quarterly sales since 2022 last month.
The company is also facing growing competition in the EV space, especially from China, with the Warren Buffett-backed BYD besting Tesla in sales and revenue so far this year.
Tesla’s stock price, which surged after the US election, has plunged around 30% since the start of the year, causing investors to ring the alarm about how much attention Musk is paying to Tesla.
In a Wednesday note, Wedbush Securities analyst and Tesla bull Dan Ives said Musk did the right thing in stepping back from his DOGE role and that Musk would likely stay on as CEO for at least another five years.
“This situation with Musk at DOGE was reaching a breaking point, but we believe that cooler heads have now prevailed,” said Ives, describing the reported search for possible replacements as a “game of high-stakes poker” between Tesla’s board and Musk.
Musk and Tesla did not respond to a request for comment sent outside normal working hours.
