On April 30, 2025, a rumor began to spread that Tesla was looking to replace Elon Musk as CEO and had been searching for his successor. The story originated from a Wall Street Journal report detailing investors' irritation over the tech billionaire's focus on politics, his relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump and suffering profits and stock prices.
According to the report, Tesla board members began searching for a successor in March 2025:
Board members reached out to several executive search firms to work on a formal process for finding Tesla's next chief executive, according to people familiar with the discussions.
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.
The Wall Street Journal relied on information from anonymous sources, including Tesla employees who told the reporter the first time they heard from Musk in months was in March 2025 at an all-hands meeting streaming on X. Tesla subsequently released a statement denying the report's claims. As such,
We reached out to Tesla and Musk to learn more about how much time he was committing to the company in the coming year, how he would balance it with political responsibilities and whether the company was considering structural or leadership changes. We will update this article if we get more information.
A few hours after the WSJ report was released, Tesla shared a statement on X, denying it was searching for a new CEO. Quoting Robyn Denholm, chairperson of Tesla's board of directors, the post said:
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).
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.
Since Trump began his second presidency in January 2025, Musk has been the public face of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, through which he aims to slash federal spending. Musk was a prominent early investor in Tesla before taking over as CEO in 2008.
As Musk spent more time in Washington D.C., the company's profits and stock prices suffered. Musk promised in an earnings call that he would devote more time to the company. The WSJ was unable to confirm whether Musk was aware of this succession planning, and he did not respond to the paper for comment.
However, on May 1, 2025, Musk tagged the WSJ in a post on X: "It's not that all @WSJ stories are fake, but they are almost all mean-spirited and deceptive."
We do not know when or if Musk plans to leave his role at DOGE. As we have reported before, in all their on-the-record statements, the White House and Musk have been vague. Trump, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields and Musk all have maintained that the tech entrepreneur will return to the private sphere when his work with DOGE is finished, without specifying when that could happen.
In sum, we have no independent confirmation of the succession planning at Tesla, and the company has publicly denied it is trying to replace Musk as CEO.