Tesla chair denies its board is looking to replace CEO Elon Musk

Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm said the electric vehicle maker's board has not contacted recruitment firms to start a search for a new CEO to replace Elon Musk.

Denholm was responding to a report in the Wall Street Journal that said board members had reached out to several hiring firms to work on a formal process for finding a new Tesla CEO. The report also said that Tesla board members told Musk he needed to spend more time at the company.

"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 wrote in a May 1 post on X, the social media app owned by Musk. "This is absolutely false (and this was communicated to the media before the report was published)."

The Journal's report comes after Tesla's first-quarter sales and profit took a hit amid a backlash from some consumers about Musk's role in the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Led by Musk, the cost-cutting task force has overseen the mass firings of federal workers, including more than 216,000 government employees terminated from their jobs in March.

When Tesla announced its first-quarter results on April 22, Musk said that he would significantly cut back his time on DOGE and spend more time at Tesla beginning in May.

Since Musk said he would refocus on Tesla, the EV maker's stock has surged 24%.

"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 added in her statement.

On the April 22 earnings call, Musk acknowledged that his role in the Trump administration has "some blowback." But he also praised DOGE's work in cutting what he claims is waste, fraud and abuse in government spending. The CEO added that he planned to continue spending one to two days a week at the group.

While Musk has said he wants to trim $2 trillion in annual spending from the federal budget — an amount that experts says is unfeasible without cutting major entitlement programs like Medicare — the DOGE website says it has saved $160 billion so far.

With the billionaire's energies focused in Washington, D.C., earlier this year, Tesla has increasingly been coping with pushback from consumers. Some Tesla owners sought to sell their vehicles rather than be associated with Musk's political views. Across the world, Tesla dealerships have also been targeted by protesters showing their opposition to DOGE.

"Musk said on the earnings call he will now be spending most of his time as CEO of Tesla as the global brand damage, political firestorm and perfect storm chaos over the past few months will hopefully now end this volatile chapter for the company," Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives wrote in an April 30 research note.