Tesla denies contacting headhunters to replace Musk

Tesla has denied reports that it has contacted recruitment firms to launch a search for a replacement for Elon Musk as chief executive.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the electric car firm's board began looking for a successor to Mr Musk last month.

It said this was because of frustration around Mr Musk's focus on his job in US President Donald Trump's administration and Tesla's sinking share price.

However, in statement on Thursday, Tesla said the report was "absolutely false" while Mr Musk wrote on his social media platform X that the paper was "a discredit to journalism".

Tesla chair Robyn Denholm wrote on X: "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)."

She added: "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."

The denial comes after the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, wrote that Mr Musk was told by the board he needed to spend more time on Tesla and that he needed to say so publicly.

The paper said Mr Musk did not push back against the suggestion. Last week, Mr Musk said on a conference call about earnings "I'll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla".

Writing on X on Thursday, Mr Musk was heavily critical of the reporting.

"It is an EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS that the [Wall Street Journal] would publish a DELIBERATELY FALSE ARTICLE and fail to include an unequivocal denial beforehand by the Tesla board of directors," he said.

He later reposted a comment from an X user that called the paper "trash".