Leon about to find out about fairweather friends?
Tesla’s chair has denied that the electric car company is looking for a replacement for Elon Musk, after the billionaire spent several months focusing on serving Donald Trump even as the carmaker’s profits slumped.
The US manufacturer posted a statement on X, the social network owned by Musk, from chair Robyn Denholm saying the company was “highly confident in his ability to continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead”, and claiming a report on possible successors was “erroneous”.
Tesla’s account on social network X posted a statement from its chair, Robyn Denholm, denying that it was seeking a new chief executive to replace Elon Musk.
It came after a report by the Wall Street Journal that said that “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.” The report said that the board members contacted the search firms a month ago, amid turmoil in Washington.
After Tesla reported a 9% drop in sales in the first quarter of 2025, Musk announced that he would reduce his time leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to focus on the carmaker.
Note a small but important discrepancy between Denholm’s denial and the WSJ report: Denholm said that it was “absolutely false” that the “Tesla board had contacted recruitment firms”. The WSJ report suggested that “board members” made the contacts.
(Guardian)