The chair of Tesla's board of directors denied a report that the company was looking into candidates to replace Elon Musk as CEO, as the company navigates a trying start to 2025.
According to The New York Times, Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm denied a Wall Street Journal report that the company had begun its search for someone to replace Musk as CEO, calling it "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 said in a post on X.
The original report from the Journal said that Tesla's board of directors contacted several executive search firms in late March and early April to help look for Musk's potential replacement.
It has not been a good start to 2025 for the EV and battery manufacturer; Tesla said its profits fell 71% in the first quarter in 2025, with its revenue falling 9% in that span, and reports have indicated Musk's apparent disengagement with the company was among the causes of that dip.
Musk acknowledged his involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency took him away from his work with Tesla, although he announced in April plans to step back from that work to focus more on Tesla again. It's unclear if the board began a search before this announcement and was assuaged by his renewed commitment to doing the job.
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Musk has also been politically active with far-right groups in Europe, like Germany's AfD party, which led to flagging sales in that country at a time when EV sales were booming. The company's Cybertruck has not sold well at all in recent months after a solid start, and other manufacturers of EVs have chipped away at the company's market share.
On top of that, Tesla has faced a number of lawsuits lately, most recently for odometers that inaccurately reported mileage to help the company avoid warranty claims.
However, it's clear that despite the turmoil, the board of directors wants to project confidence in sticking by Musk for at least the foreseeable future in the hopes he can get the company's bottom line back on track.
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