Elon Musk on Thursday criticised The Wall Street Journal after the paper reported Tesla’s board began searching for a new CEO to take over amid concerns about the company’s plunging stock price and frustrations about the billionaire’s heavy involvement in President Donald Trump’s administration.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk told investors last week that he will be “allocating far more of my time” to the company and cutting back his involvement in the Trump administration.
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Key Takeaways
- On Wednesday evening, the Journal reported Tesla’s board members had been in touch with recruitment firms to find a successor to Musk, as investors were “irritated” about the amount of time Musk was spending in Washington.
- Citing unnamed people “familiar with the discussions,” the report said the board met Musk during this period and its members informed him that he needed to devote more time to Tesla and publicly say so.
- Robyn Denholm, the chair of Tesla’s board of directors, issued a statement on the company’s official X account early on Thursday, dismissing the report as “absolutely false” and said the paper had been told this before the story was published.
- Denholm said Musk remains the CEO of Tesla and “the Board is highly confident in his ability to continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead.”
- Musk also chimed in from his personal X account in a post attacking the Journal, accusing the outlet of publishing a “DELIBERATELY FALSE ARTICLE,” and calling it an “EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS,” before tweeting later Thursday that “not all” Journal “stories are fake, but they are almost all mean-spirited and deceptive.”
- The Journal’s report mentioned Musk did not respond to requests for a comment, but the billionaire claimed the paper failed to “include an unequivocal denial beforehand by the Tesla board of directors.”
What Did Musk Say At Tesla’s Recent Earnings Call?
After Tesla released a brutal Q1 2025 earnings report last week, Elon Musk told investors on the company’s earnings call: “Starting next month,” he said on a conference call about earnings, “I’ll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla.” However, Musk did not fully commit to exiting his government role and told investors that he would “continue to spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the President would like me to do so.” Musk’s comments led to a sharp bounce back in Tesla’s share price, despite a poor earnings report.
Related
What Did Tesla’s Q1 2025 Earnings Look Like?
Tesla’s latest earnings marked its worst quarterly sales since Q2 2022. The quarter was also Tesla’s least profitable since the first three months of 2021. Earlier this month, the company reported it delivered 337,000 vehicles in the first quarter, which was 17% lower than analyst estimates.
Crucial Quote
On Wednesday night, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives commented on the Journal’s report on X, saying: “While this was a very tense situation, we believe Musk clearly did the right thing and we believe Musk will remain CEO for at least five years at Tesla and we would be surprised if the Board was still heading down this path. The Board did a warning shot.”
Big Number
25.61%. That is the percentage by which Tesla’s share price has declined since the start of the year.
This article was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
