ON THIN ICE

Crisis-Hit Tesla Started Search to Replace Musk as CEO as Stock Plummeted

Some Tesla investors reportedly grew irritated with Elon Musk’s focus on DOGE.

Tesla’s board reportedly got serious about finding a new CEO after the company’s stock took a serious hit last month while Elon Musk was busy with DOGE.

Tesla board members reached out to multiple executive search firms to initiate the hunt for a new CEO as tensions mounted over the company’s plummeting stock price, sources familiar with the discussions told The Wall Street Journal.

The board’s search reportedly stemmed from concern—and in some cases, irritation—over Musk’s close involvement with the Trump administration as the leader of its divisive cost-cutting effort.

As sales and profits fell and Musk’s time in Washington rose, Tesla’s board met with Musk for an update, telling him that he needed to spend more time running the automaker, according to the Journal. They also told him to do so publicly—and he didn’t push back.

Tesla’s board narrowed its focus down to one executive search firm, the Journal reported. It is unclear whether Musk is aware of the effort or if his vow to spend more time at Tesla has affected the search.

Musk and Tesla shut down the Journal‘s reporting as “false” early Thursday morning.

“It is an EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS that the WSJ would publish a DELIBERATELY FALSE ARTICLE and fail to include an unequivocal denial beforehand by the Tesla board of directors!” the billionaire wrote on X.

Robyn Denholm, chairman of Tesla’s board, said they remained “highly confident” in Musk’s ability to lead the company.

The Journal told the Daily Beast that it stood by its reporting: “Tesla was given the opportunity to provide a statement before publication, which they did not do.”

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In an earnings call with Tesla investors last month, Musk announced that he would scale back his time with DOGE to just one or two days a week starting in May.

“There’s been some blowback for the time that I’ve been spending in government with DOGE,” he said. “I think the work that we’re doing there is actually very important for trying to bring in the insane deficit that is leading our country, the United States, to destruction.”

The announcement came after Tesla reported that its profits had plummeted by 71 percent in the first quarter of 2025. The carmaker only earned $409 million in the first three months of the year, down from $1.4 billion over the same period in 2024.

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Elon Musk Has Already Packed Up and Left the White House

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Even at DOGE, Musk has fallen short of his own projected savings.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model found that government spending rose by 6.3 percent or $156 billion since Trump returned to office in January, compared to the first four months of 2024, despite DOGE’s claimed savings of $160 billion.

At a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, Trump thanked Musk for the “tremendous” help as he acknowledged that it was time for the tech mogul to go.

“You know you’re invited to stay as long as you want,” the president told Musk. “He wants to get back home to his cars.”

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