Tesla board, Elon Musk slams 'absolutely false' report claiming they're searching for new CEO

In the wake of a report in the Wall Street Journal claiming that Tesla’s board had launched a search for a new CEO to replace Elon Musk, both Musk and Tesla have denied these claims.

The Chair of Tesla’s board of directors, Robyn Denholm, wrote, "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)," she continued. "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."

Musk criticized the Wall Street Journal for its "extremely bad breach of ethics," saying that the outlet published a "deliberately false article" and "fail[ed] to include an unequivocal denial beforehand by the Tesla board of directors!"

The Wall Street Journal reported that Tesla, amid a sinking stock and irritation from investors over Musk’s involvement with the White House, "got serious about looking for Musk’s successor" around a month ago, with board members reaching out to executive search firms. The article cited anonymous people familiar with the matter. The outlet said that Musk and Tesla did not respond before publication.

After Musk said in an April earnings call in which Musk said that he would be allocating "far more of my time to Tesla" starting in May, the board reportedly "narrowed its focus to a major search firm." The Wall Street Journal added that "the current status of the succession planning couldn’t be determined," and that it was unclear if Musk had been aware of the effort or if his pledge to spend more time at Tesla had affected the planning process.

This comes as an earnings report released last week revealed that quarterly revenue for the company dropped 9 percent, including 20 percent in automotive revenue, with key markets in California, China, and Germany seeing declines in sales. Since the start of the Trump administration and Musk working with the White House to cut government waste, fraud, and abuse through the Department of Government Efficiency, Tesla vehicles, charging stations, and dealerships have been targeted with vandalism and violent attacks.