Tesla Inc.’s reported preliminary search for a successor to CEO Elon Musk in March amid a poor first quarter and intensifying criticism over his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sparked an outright denial from the automaker and seething comments from Musk.

The world’s richest man and his company vehemently pushed back on a report in the Wall Street Journal late Wednesday that the board took early steps to potentially replace Musk following months of his absence while he ran DOGE and underwhelming first-quarter results for Tesla. Shares of the company have plummeted 30% so far this year.

“It is an EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS that the [Journal] would publish a DELIBERATELY FALSE ARTICLE and fail to include an unequivocal denial beforehand by the Tesla board of directors,” Musk wrote early Thursday on social media platform X, which he owns.

Shortly after the Journal’s story was published, Tesla Chairman Robyn Denholm wrote, “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. This is absolutely false (and this was communicated to the media before the report was published). 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 Journal said Tesla did not comment before publication of the story, which cited people familiar with the situation.

Discussions of a possible replacement occurred roughly around the time Tesla reported a 71% drop in first-quarter earnings and a 9% dip in revenue.

In an April 22 call with investors, Musk said “starting next month, I’ll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla now that the major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency is done.”

Analysts believe if there was any inflamed tension between Musk and the eight-member Tesla board, it has subsided as he directs all his attention to the company for now.

“While this was a very tense situation, we believe Musk clearly did the right thing and we believe Musk will remain CEO for at least five years at Tesla and we would be surprised if the Board was still heading down this search path as of today,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors. “We continue to believe Musk’s days at the White House are now ending after this ‘warning shot’ from the Tesla Board.”