Tesla turmoil
Tesla denies trying to replace Elon Musk as CEO
Tesla board contacted exec search firms to find Musk replacement, WSJ reports.
Jon Brodkin
–
May 1, 2025 12:08 pm
|
88
Elon Musk attends a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Credit:
Getty Images | Andrew Harnik
Elon Musk attends a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Credit:
Getty Images | Andrew Harnik
Text
settings
Story text
Size
Small
Standard
Large
Width
*
Standard
Wide
Links
Standard
Orange
* Subscribers only
Learn more
Minimize to nav
Tesla today denied a report that its board contacted executive search firms to find a replacement for CEO Elon Musk. The Wall Street Journal reported last night that about a month ago, "Tesla's board got serious about looking for Musk's successor" and that board "members reached out to several executive search firms to work on a formal process for finding Tesla's next chief executive."
Tesla's official X account then posted a statement attributed to board chairperson Robyn Denholm saying that "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," Denholm's statement said.
The Wall Street Journal report said that Tesla didn't provide a statement before publication and attributed information about the CEO search to people familiar with the discussions. Musk claimed in a post on X that the Journal "fail[ed] to include an unequivocal denial beforehand by the Tesla board of directors" and alleged that the WSJ committed "an EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS" by publishing "a DELIBERATELY FALSE ARTICLE."
Tension within Tesla
The Journal article notes that at the time of the reported outreach to executive search firms, Tesla's stock was sinking, and some investors were "irritated" about Musk spending more time working for the White House's DOGE project and less for the carmaker. The article said:
Tensions had been mounting at the company. Sales and profits were deteriorating rapidly. Musk was spending much of his time in Washington.
Around that time, Tesla's board met with Musk for an update. Board members told him he needed to spend more time on Tesla, according to people familiar with the meeting. And he needed to say so publicly.
Musk didn't push back.
Musk subsequently said in an April 22 call with investors that "starting next month, I'll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla now that the major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency is done."
The Journal report said that after Musk's public statement, the Tesla "board narrowed its focus to a major search firm, according to the people familiar with the discussions. The current status of the succession planning couldn't be determined. It is also unclear if Musk, himself a Tesla board member, was aware of the effort, or if his pledge to spend more time at Tesla has affected succession planning."
Tesla's eight-member board has been criticized for having members with close ties to Musk. Last year, a Delaware judge who invalidated a $55.8 billion pay package awarded to Musk said that most of the board members "were beholden to Musk or had compromising conflicts."
That includes Musk's brother, Kimbal, and longtime Musk friend James Murdoch, said the ruling from Delaware Court of Chancery Judge Kathaleen McCormick. The judge also wrote that Denholm "derived the vast majority of her wealth from her compensation as a Tesla director" and took a "lackadaisical approach to her oversight obligations." Denholm later defended Musk's pay, telling shareholders that the large sum was needed to keep the CEO motivated.
Jon Brodkin
Senior IT Reporter
Jon Brodkin
Senior IT Reporter
Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.
88 Comments
Meet the winners of the 2025 Dance Your PhD contest do sex
Google is quietly testing ads in AI chatbots do sex
Sam Altman’s World unveils a mobile verification device do sex
MoviePass explores a daily fantasy platform for film buffs do sex
WhatsApp now has more than 3 billion users a month do sex
