In a shocking revelation that Tesla has vigorously denied with the corporate equivalent of “I did not have textual relations with that executive search firm,” the Wall Street Journal reported last week that Tesla’s board began contacting headhunters to find someone – anyone – who could replace Elon Musk as CEO while the billionaire was busy slashing government jobs faster than Twitter’s (now X) workforce circa 2022.1 This development comes as Tesla’s stock has plummeted 41% from its December peak, and first-quarter automotive revenue dropped 20% compared to last year.2
Board chair Robyn Denholm immediately declared the report “absolutely false,” using Tesla’s official X account – a platform conveniently owned by the very CEO whose replacement she’s allegedly not seeking.3 Meanwhile, Musk himself responded with characteristic restraint by calling the Wall Street Journal “a discredit to journalism,” displaying the same diplomatic finesse that has endeared him to Tesla customers worldwide.
The “We’re Not Looking, But If We Were” List
While Tesla vehemently denies any CEO search, industry insiders have begun speculating about potential candidates who possess the impossible combination of traits needed to replace Musk: manufacturing genius, Twitter (now X) abstinence, and the ability to prevent the company’s price to earnings (P/E) ratio from descending from its stratospheric 167 to a pedestrian single-digit like Ford’s 7.4
Names being floated include Tom Zhu (Tesla’s China business leader and master of staying out of the spotlight), JB Straubel (former Tesla CTO who understands both the company and the concept of not alienating customers), and Gwynne Shotwell (SpaceX president and certified Musk-whisperer).5 Conspicuously absent from this list is any mention of a “Tim Cook-style” operations expert, perhaps because Tesla fears what happened when Apple’s talented operations guru took over from its volatile founder: merely becoming the most valuable company in world history. How embarrassing.6
The Department of CEO Efficiency
As Musk divides his attention between running Tesla and firing government employees through his role at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Tesla’s board members reportedly met with him to suggest – in what must have been the corporate equivalent of a family intervention – that he might want to consider publicly announcing he would spend more time at the company that actually pays his billions of dollars of wages.
In response, Musk grudgingly agreed to reduce his DOGE commitments to “once or twice per week”, a workload that remains significantly more public service than most billionaires perform, unless one counts lobbying for tax breaks. This newfound free time will presumably allow him to focus on Tesla’s core business of selling cars, a novel concept in the automotive industry.
Not Your Father’s Steve Jobs Firing
Analysts desperate for historical parallels have compared this situation to Apple’s ouster of Steve Jobs in 1985. However, there are crucial differences: Steve Jobs was forcibly removed by CEO John Sculley, while Musk reportedly texted a close associate last year that he didn’t want to continue as Tesla CEO but feared nobody else could realize his vision of Tesla as more than just a car company.
Furthermore, unlike Steve Jobs, who returned to save Apple after a series of failed CEOs nearly destroyed it, Musk is irreplaceable because he possesses a unique quality that no executive search firm can replicate: a Twitter (now X) account with 175 million followers and the impulse control of a toddler at a candy store. The Tesla board faces the unenviable task of finding someone who can maintain the company’s astronomical valuation while tweeting 98% less frequently and 100% less controversially.
The Math of Musk: Advanced Stock Price Calculations
Tesla investor Gary Black, managing partner at The Future Fund LLC, offered a precise mathematical formula for the Musk Effect: Musk resigning as CEO but staying in a technical role equals a 5-10% stock drop, while a complete Musk exit equals a 20-25% decline, vaporizing approximately $220 billion in shareholder value.7 This valuation model suggests that roughly a quarter of Tesla’s worth exists solely in Musk’s physical presence, making him less a CEO and more a financial horcrux.
Meanwhile, University of Michigan business professor Erik Gordon offered a slightly less quantitative assessment: “I can’t think of anybody on the face of the earth or Mars who can replace Elon Musk” – a statement that inadvertently reveals why the search is so difficult, as Mars remains largely uninhabited and Earth’s population has been thoroughly screened already.
The Impossible Job Description
If Tesla were to post a job listing for Musk’s replacement, it might read something like this:
“Seeking visionary CEO capable of maintaining 100+ P/E ratio while manufacturing cars at competitive prices. Must convince investors company is simultaneously a car manufacturer, tech firm, AI developer, and future robotics leader. Ability to work with eccentric founder who will remain largest shareholder and publicly criticize your decisions is essential. Experience with public backlash and showroom vandalism preferred. Previous success wrestling with alligators while juggling flaming torches a plus.”
The job’s primary qualification-being Elon Musk without being Elon Musk – presents a paradox that no executive search firm can resolve, short of developing cloning technology or locating a multiverse portal.
The Bigfoot Shadow Problem
Any successor would operate under what Professor Gordon calls Musk’s “Bigfoot shadow,” similar to how Apple executives functioned under Jobs’ looming presence. However, unlike Jobs, who was ousted and returned triumphantly, Musk would remain Tesla’s largest shareholder with approximately 13% of the stock, enabling him to tweet criticisms of his replacement from the comfort of whatever underground lair he’s currently developing.
This creates what management consultants call the “backseat driver from hell” scenario, where the founder remains influential enough to torpedo initiatives while bearing none of the responsibility for quarterly earnings calls. Industry experts suggest the only viable candidates might be those with contractual guarantees of massive severance packages and the emotional resilience of a Nokia 3310.
The Tesla-to-BlackBerry Pipeline
Tesla’s succession crisis highlights an existential question: Is Tesla actually the iPhone maker of electric vehicles, or merely the BlackBerry – “a bold innovation that radically changed the sector and created a passionate fanbase, only to see its market share get washed away by competitors”?
While Tesla pioneered the modern electric vehicle market, it no longer holds the same untouchable position. Unlike Apple, which created network effects that locked users into its ecosystem, Tesla has been forced to open its Supercharger network to competitors, and its software offerings are “unlikely to lock in consumers the way iPhone owners are reluctant to move to Android”. Without Musk’s reality distortion field maintaining Tesla’s valuation at 20+ times that of traditional automakers, the company might be forced to compete on mundane metrics like profit margins and build quality.
The Ultimate Meme Stock
Perhaps the most sobering assessment comes from a business writer who described Tesla as “the ultimate meme stock” years ago. While the company doesn’t share the same meme status as GameStop, its stock price heavily depends on retail investors’ faith in Musk to generate market confidence – a skill he has mastered to perfection. Tesla trades at a price-to-earnings ratio exceeding 100 (around 167 last week), compared to General Motors at approximately 6 and Ford at 7.
This suggests that finding a replacement isn’t just about identifying a capable executive, but finding someone who can maintain the quasi-religious fervor Musk has inspired among investors. As one analyst put it, any potential successor would need to “make good on Musk’s vision” rather than chart a new course for the company. In other words, Tesla needs a tribute act, not an original artist.
The Elon Extinction Event
The most uncomfortable truth lurking behind the succession rumors is the reality that Musk will eventually exit the stage one way or another. Whether through retirement, focusing on other ventures, or the inevitable mortality that awaits even those planning Mars colonies, Tesla will someday exist without its founder.
Without a viable succession plan, the company faces what investment analysts call the “founder dependency trap” – a condition where a company’s value is so intertwined with its founder’s persona that separation becomes organizationally traumatic. For Tesla, this means either accepting a dramatic devaluation when Musk departs or finding the corporate equivalent of a face transplant to maintain the illusion that nothing has changed.
As Tesla navigates this crisis while simultaneously denying its existence, the board faces an impossible dilemma: acknowledge the search and trigger a stock collapse, or maintain the charade that Musk will remain CEO forever, defying both time and his own attention span. Perhaps the only viable solution lies not in finding a human replacement at all, but in training one of Tesla’s own AI systems to impersonate Musk on earnings calls while tweeting controversial memes at 3 a.m. – a strategy that would be indistinguishable from the current arrangement to most observers.
Do you think Tesla can survive without Elon Musk? Is the board right to search for a replacement, or should they just accept that the company’s valuation is permanently tied to one man’s Twitter habits? Have you noticed your local Tesla showroom installing reinforced glass due to the backlash against Musk’s political activities? Share your thoughts in the comments below, ideally without triggering another 15% stock price swing.
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References
- https://news.sky.com/story/teslas-board-members-have-reportedly-started-looking-for-elon-musks-successor-as-ceo-13359016 ↩︎
- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-reportedly-said-last-111700409.html ↩︎
- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr4n94klqg9o ↩︎
- https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-vs-steve-jobs-leadership-tesla-apple-2023-1 ↩︎
- https://www.axios.com/2025/05/01/elon-musk-tesla-ceo-succession ↩︎
- https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tim-cook-ceo-run-tesla-apple-iphone-2025-4 ↩︎
- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musks-exit-ceo-means-005955402.html ↩︎
