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Tesla chair Robyn Denholm has denied a report that the board is seeking to replace chief executive Elon Musk in response to plunging sales and a widespread backlash against his alliance with US President Donald Trump.
“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,” Denholm said in a post on the electric-vehicle maker’s account on social media platform X on Thursday morning.
“This is 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.”
Denholm was responding to a Wall Street Journal report that the board had contacted headhunters to recruit his successor after growing concerned about the time he was spending in Washington.
Trump catapulted Musk into the centre of his administration by making him head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, with the polarising billionaire vowing to find a $1tn of savings in the annual federal budget.
But the controversial role has prompted a backlash in Tesla’s domestic market, with some consumers shunning the brand, its dealerships facing protests and its cars being vandalised.
The increasing politicisation of Tesla’s brand in the US comes after Musk’s interventions in European politics, including backing the far-right Alternative for Germany party ahead of the country’s elections in February, hit sales on the continent.
First-quarter profit at the carmaker plunged 71 per cent, undershooting even the most pessimistic expectations, and Tesla lost its crown as the world’s largest EV maker to Chinese rival BYD.
Its shares have fallen 30 per cent since the start of the year, wiping more than $800bn from its market valuation.
Last week Musk bowed to investor pressure, pledging to “significantly” scale back his work at Doge — a position originally slated to last into 2026 — and start “allocating far more of my time to Tesla”.
Any move by the board to oust Musk would be seismic given the 53-year-old’s talismanic role at the group and large shareholding. In December, a US judge shot down the board’s second attempt to award Musk a record pay package.
Musk also splits his time across a business empire spanning social media platform X, which he recently merged with his artificial intelligence company xAI, as well as SpaceX and Neuralink.
Musk, who has clashed with members of Trump’s cabinet, has since largely vacated his office near the White House and is advising on Doge remotely, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles told the New York Post on Wednesday that Musk “hasn’t been [at the White House] physically, but it really doesn’t matter much”, adding that she spoke to the billionaire regularly by phone.
