Did The Tesla Board Begin A Search For A Musk Replacement? It Depends On Who You Ask.

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Last Updated on: 1st May 2025, 01:49 pm

The Wall Street Journal this week published a report claiming Tesla “board members” contacted corporate recruiters to find a successor to Elon Musk about a month ago. Robyn Denholm, the chair of the Tesla board of directors, who normally has nothing at all to say about the company to the press, reacted like she had been stung by a horde of hornets.

Oddly enough, if the WSJ is correct, it was a month ago — when these alleged contacts with executive recruitment firms are said to have taken place — that Denholm was in Melbourne, Australia, getting ready to deliver a speech. That’s when she was asked by reporters about Musk and his involvement with the so-called Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Denholm studiously ignored questions about Tesla and Musk. When asked if she was concerned about Musk’s right-wing allegiances or his opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, she declined to answer. Asked if she had a message for Tesla shareholders, she did not respond. A woman accompanying Denholm said they would not comment or respond to any questions.

Oh, but now the shoe is on the other foot and suddenly Denholm is shocked, SHOCKED by this outrageous report by those quislings at the WSJ. Indignant, she took to her boss’s anti-social media platform to proclaim, “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.”

This might be a good time to point out that one of the 8 members of the Tesla board is James Murdoch, the wayward son of Rupert Murdoch who owns the Wall Street Journal. James has publicly broken with his father and older brother over how the company Rupert founded — which owns Fox News in addition to many other media companies — is run.

According to The Guardian, the reported move came as tensions grew at Tesla around falling profits and criticism of Musk for spending much of his time in Washington, where he has been helping Donald Trump take a six-foot chainsaw to the federal government as de facto head of DOGE. It is unclear in the report whether these members were acting on behalf of the board as a collective, or if it was only some of them taking steps to find a new chief executive, The Guardian said.

Musk himself was incandescent with rage at the WSJ report, which he denounced on his personal disinformation channel on April 30. “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!”

It is to laugh, my old Irish grandmother would say. This is a man whose companies routinely refuse to comment on any press inquiries. Musk himself, who seems to have a mental age of about 7, likes to post an emoji of a smiling pile of dung whenever people ask him a question he doesn’t want to answer. This is typical of the “do as I say, not as I do” mindset so beloved by MAGAlomaniacs. [Editor’s note: I would add that his platform, X, also continuously, incessantly spreads misinformation and he has decided that both a) X is the real news and b) he and his company have no responsibility to remove harmful misinformation from X, all in the name of unfettered “free speech.” —Zach]

The Tesla Board Is Far From Transparent

Calls for the Tesla board have been growing lately, as the mercurial Mister Musk has swerved violently to the right in his political activities. Telling Germans to vote for the neo-Nazi Alternative für Deutschland party in that country’s national elections in February, after he dumped $300 million of his own money into getting the Republican pretender elected last November, was too much for many potential Tesla customers. Existing owners have taken to putting anti-Musk bumper stickers on their cars to make it be known they do not support Musk’s current political activities.

Musk does seem to be not minding the store at Tesla, spending much of his time at Mar-A-Loco, building fossil-powered supercomputers in Memphis, fighting with Sam Altman, overseeing SpaceX, designing humanoid robots, boring underground tunnels here and there, and procreating as much as possible. He has 14 children, so far as we know. One wonders where he finds the time!

Amanda Mull of Bloomberg suggests that Tesla “is in the middle of what might be politely described as a vibe shift.” No longer do progressives support the company or its CEO. There are just too many questions about the company’s actual dedication to protecting workers rights, transportation innovation, or transitioning to a sustainable world. “It’s nearly impossible to think of a comparable example of a company detonating its own brand,” Mull said.

The head of the Merry Pranksters at CleanTechnica, Zachary Shahan, wrote a satirical post at the beginning of April suggesting the Tesla board might be ready to ask Musk to step aside — or else. Funny how life often imitates art. “It’s no secret that Tesla sales have been half a world off of where they were supposed to be,” Zachary wrote.

“A few years ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla sales would grow at about 50% a year through the 2020s — not necessarily every year, but on average. That was happening for a bit, but things have not exactly been going according to plan for more than a year now. Far from seeing 50% sales growth in 2024, Tesla sales actually declined last year. This is in the context of the broader EV market growing. Growth was perhaps not as high as many expected, but EV sales were growing — just not Tesla’s.”

Tesla is saying this week that the long overdue Semi battery electric Class 8 tractor will finally go into production in Nevada next year, but Michael Barnard suggested recently the company may have already lost its first mover advantage because during the many years of delay, other companies have begun manufacturing their own battery-powered tractors. They may not have the Tesla “T” on the hood, but they will be from recognized brands like Volvo, Freightliner, and others.

Barnard points out that fleet managers are a fairly staid bunch. They like to do business with companies they know and trust. The Tesla Semi may be a marvel of modern engineering, but it has no track record as of yet and it will take years to establish one. “There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip,” as Granny would say.

So, is the Tesla board growing tired of Musk’s shenanigans? Not according to Robyn Denholm, but is her thundering denial convincing? “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” Queen Gertrude proclaimed in Hamlet. The crunch will come if Tesla continues its downward slide in world markets such as Europe and China, and whether it can continue to attract new customers in the US. Ultimately, it’s all about money, and if the company becomes less profitable as a result of Musk’s antics, that may force the board’s hand.