Shares of Tesla were flat in premarket trading Thursday after the EV maker denied a Wall Street Journal report that its board was searching for a replacement for chief executive Elon Musk. The report, citing comments from sources familiar with the discussions, said that Tesla’s board members reached out to several executive search firms to work on a formal process for finding the company’s next CEO. Shares of Tesla fell as much as 3% in overnight trading on trading platform Robinhood following the news, before paring losses. Tesla chair Robyn Denholm wrote on the social media platform X that the report was “absolutely false.”

Tesla (TSLA.O) chair Robyn Denholm on Thursday denied a Wall Street Journal report that said board members had reached out to executive search firms to find a new replacement for CEO Elon Musk. The Journal had reported on Wednesday Tesla's board members had reached out about a month ago to several executive search firms to find a new CEO, citing people familiar with the discussions. Denholm called the report "absolutely false" and said on X the EV maker's board is "highly confident" in Musk's ability to "continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead". Musk said on X the report was a "deliberately false article". Activist investors have long accused Tesla's board of lacking independence and failing to rein in Musk.

Tesla and Elon Musk are pushing back against a report claiming the company’s board launched a search for a successor to the mercurial CEO last month as he spent time away from the company leading President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that the board had reached out to executive search firms to initiate a formal process to identify potential replacements for Musk as the electric car maker grapples with slowing sales, shrinking profits and a bruising year on the stock market. The report, which cited sources familiar with the matter, triggered an immediate reaction from investors and sent Tesla’s stock down as much as 3% in after-hours trading on Robinhood before recovering some of the losses. Musk reacted to the Journal report, writing on X: “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!”