Tesla made a brutal move to oust Elon Musk amid a cratering stock price and negative press from his controversial moves in the Trump administration.
The electric car company opened a search to find a new leader after Musk spent the past two decades as CEO, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The revelation came as Donald Trump praised Musk for his work with DOGE but said he may want ‘to get back home to his cars.’
However, his cars may not have been there for him when he got back had he not announced his early May departure from the White House.
Musk had been asked by the board to make the public statement promising he would head back to his day job or face losing it.
The CEO did not push back and announced he would be devoting ‘far more of my time to Tesla.’
The electric car maker sought the advice of multiple executive search firms to begin the process of succeeding Musk.
It’s unclear exactly how far they got on their search or if they’re still looking to replace him but anonymous sources said that they had decided on a particular firm to conduct the search.
Also unknown is whether or not Musk knew anything about the search or his status within the company, which is also searching for an independent director whether Musk remains CEO or not.
The automaker’s first-quarter profits cratered 71 percent, with the EV giant pulling in $409 million compared to $1.4 billion during the same stretch last year.
Tesla began a search to replace CEO Elon Musk amid stock turmoil and negative press from the ‘First Buddy’ serving as head of the Department of Government Efficiency
The new report comes out the same day Donald Trump praised Musk for his work with DOGE but may want ‘to get back home to his cars’
Wall Street expected a better performance — and investors are clearly growing uneasy with the once-dominant EV brand.
The company’s stock price has shed nearly 40 percent of its value since January (though, it has regained some momentum after the earnings release) when Musk started serving as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and being spotted everywhere with Donald Trump.
Tesla’s first quarter earnings conference call allowed investors to ask what they wanted of the CEO and it was clear there was only one thing on their minds.
One asked: ‘Can Elon please provide some reassurance that at some point soon he will be done with DOGE and politics? Many Tesla shareholders wish he would reprioritize the majority of his time and effort to engineering.’
‘Starting probably in next month, in May, my time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly,’ Musk said on the call.
However, he still plans to put in one to two days per week still helping out with DOGE, he claimed.
