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Whether you like him or loathe him, Elon Musk’s role as CEO of Tesla has remained unshaken…for now.
The super-duper rich Musk has revealed he would only stop being Tesla’s chief executive if one thing happened, and if it does, it’s not a great thing for one particular company.
Let’s bring it back to the beginning. This whole conversation began when Musk was caught up in reports that Tesla was ‘looking for his replacement’.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 30 April that the company was actively looking for someone else to come in and take over his role at his own company, after sales and profits were noticeably dropping.
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But exactly why did these profits drop, and why would replacing Musk be the solution, I hear you ask?
Well, apparently, it was because Musk got all cosy in Donald Trump’s government and took over the Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Because he was so invested in US politics, investors allegedly became concerned over the way the company was or wasn’t being run.
This led to them calling Musk out publicly online, asking for him to either come back or quit.
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However, Tesla looking for a replacement was seemingly fake news, as Robyn Denholm, Tesla’s chairman, rejected the claim, calling it ‘absolutely false’ and stating the board was ‘highly confident in his ability to continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead’ as per The Times.
“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,” he shared on Tesla’s X account.
“This is absolutely false (and this was communicated to the media before the report was published).”
Anyway, Musk went back to Tesla and redirected his attention away from DOGE, and he went on to tell the Qatar Economic Forum the one reason he’d step down from his role at the electronic vehicle company.
When asked whether he would continue to be with Tesla in five years’ time, he said ‘yes’, and then explained that he would be there unless he died.
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After clearing up any confusion, he went on to slate the Delaware chancery court judge who ruled against tens of billions of dollars’ worth of a pay package the company awarded to him all the way back in 2018.
But he did say that the legal issue is unlikely to sway him to leave his post.
“The compensation should match that something incredible was done,” he said. “But I’m confident that whatever some activist posing as a judge in Delaware happens to do will not affect the future compensation.”
In response to the WSJ’s reports on his position being shaky, he (as one might predict) went off on a rant online.
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“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!” he scathed.
Anyway, it seems that only death could keep him from his post in the next five years, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens when that time is up.
Britt Jones