Musk Denies Reports That Tesla Might Replace Him As Ceo

Elon Musk is pushing back on reports that the board of his electric car company Tesla opened a search for a new CEO to replace him.

The rebuke from the SpaceX founder and the special adviser to President Donald Trump came after exclusive reporting by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. It claimed that Tesla — amid plummeting stocks over the last month and a growing panic from investors — opened the doors to executive search firms to find Musk’s replacement.

Robyn Denholm, the chair of Tesla’s board, later said no search had been initiated and called the Journal’s report “absolutely false.” Musk, in his own post to X, insinuated that the Journal had been told before publishing its story that Tesla had not initiated a CEO search.

“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!” Musk wrote on X, which he owns.

“WSJ is a discredit to journalism,” Musk said in a separate post. The Journal did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The Journal’s reporting comes as Tesla has suffered a sharp drop in sales and revenues in the first quarter of 2025 — compounded by concerns over the impact of Trump’s tariffs and on Musk’s leave from the company while he’s taken up the mandate of remaking the federal government with the Department of Government Efficiency.

In its story, the Journal reported that Tesla’s board of directors narrowed its efforts to one major search firm but that it was unclear what the current status of the purported CEO search planning was. The article was updated early Thursday to note that “Tesla didn’t provide a statement before publication.”

Musk told investors in a call last week that he would be spending more time with Tesla, taking a step back from his work with DOGE to focus on the car maker. Musk has been at the head of the company for two decades, and it's just one of the billionaire's several business ventures.

On top of a fall in earnings and potential complications with its supply chain due to tariffs, Tesla has been the target of numerous attacks and protests across the country at its showrooms — demonstrations targeting its CEO and his work with DOGE, which instituted mass layoffs and cuts across the federal government.

Denholm backed Musk in the post on X and signaled that Musk would remain in his post for the foreseeable future.

“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,” the post said.