Tesla's board on Thursday rushed to defend its chief executive, Elon Musk, assuring he had the board's confidence amid rising investor worries about his prolonged absences, polarizing politics and the EV maker's plunging sales and profit.

Elon Musk has called the Wall Street Journal report a "deliberately false article" and an "extremely bad breach of ethics."

According to a new, brow-raising WSJ report, Tesla's board quietly began searching for Elon Musk's potential successor about a month ago, approaching