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.”

“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,” she wrote.

“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.”It comes after a sharp drop in the electric vehicle giant’s sales and profits, with its top and bottom lines missing estimates in the first quarter. Musk has admitted that his involvement with the Trump administration could be hurting the automaker’s stock price.

The mega-billionaire said on a Tesla earnings call last week that he plans to spend just a “day or two per week” running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency beginning in May.Tesla’s total revenue slipped 9% year-on-year to hit $19.34 billion in the January-March quarter. This falls short of the $21.11 billion forecast by analysts, LSEG data shows.

Revenue from its automotive segment declined 20% year-on-year to $14 billion, as the company needed to update lines at its four vehicle factories to start making a refreshed version of its popular Model Y SUV. Tesla also attributed the decline to lower average selling prices and sales incentives as a drag on revenue and profit.

Its net income plunged 71% to $409 million, or 12 cents a share, from $1.39 billion or 41 cents a year ago.

Since the start of the year, its shares have plunged over 30%.

McDonald’s reported its worst quarterly sales for the United States since the height of the pandemic in 2020, the latest restaurant chain to be affected by America’s turbulent economic environment.

The burger giant reported U.S. same-store sales fell 3.6%, the largest three-month drop since Q2 2020, when they plunged 8.7%. Forecasts had been for a decline of just 1.7%.

‘Consumers today are grappling with uncertainty,’ McDonald’s Chairman and CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a statement, as the chain cited lower guest counts.

In a follow-up call with investors, McDonald’s executives said that traffic among middle-income diners fell by ‘nearly double digits’ alongside an ongoing drop-off among low-income ones. As an example, they said more people appear to be skipping breakfast entirely to cut back on spending, or eating breakfast at home.

‘People are just visiting less,’ they said.

High-income traffic, meanwhile, remained stable, they said.

That reflects the economy writ large: While less-well-off consumers rein in transactions to focus on essentials, wealthy consumers continue to spend freely.

McDonald’s is the latest restaurant chain to report weak financial results amid signs that consumers are pulling back on discretionary spending. Chipotle, Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Shake Shack and Starbucks all saw slowing or declining sales in their quarter, with many citing particular weakness among lower-income consumers.

McDonald’s also reported revenues that missed forecasts for the third time in four quarters.

The more volatile economic environment that’s been accelerated by President Donald Trump’s tariffs policies is also being felt abroad.

On the call, company officials said that while the McDonald’s brand hadn’t been affected by worsening perceptions of the U.S. by overseas consumers, its internal surveys had picked up a notable uptick in anti-American sentiment, particularly among diners in northern Europe and Canada.

‘We have seen … an increase in people in various markets saying they’re going to be cutting back on purchases of American brands,’ they said.

It nevertheless maintained its full-year financial outlook, including plans to open 2,200 locations, which it said should help boost sales growth by slightly more than 2%. It said a promotional tie-in with the ‘Minecraft Movie’ had been a hit, and that its refreshed value offerings continued to position it strongly compared with competitors.

Still, officials said on the call that they remained “cautious about consumer sentiment.”

Shares fell 1.6% in early trading.

Nvidia blasted Anthropic Thursday in a rare public clash over artificial intelligence policy with U.S. chip export restrictions set to take effect.

“American firms should focus on innovation and rise to the challenge, rather than tell tall tales that large, heavy, and sensitive electronics are somehow smuggled in ‘baby bumps’ or ‘alongside live lobsters,’ ” a spokesperson for Nvidia said.

Anthropic, the AI startup backed by billions from Amazon, argued for tighter controls and enforcement, saying in a blog post Wednesday that Chinese smuggling tactics involved chips hidden in “prosthetic baby bumps” and “packed alongside live lobsters.”

Chip restrictions from former President Joe Biden’s term, called the “AI Diffusion Rule,” are set to take effect May 15. The rule puts global export controls on advanced AI chips and model weights to prevent rival nations like China from gaining ground in an escalating AI arms race.

President Donald Trump is reportedly working on updating these restrictions, adding another layer of uncertainty to the already contentious policy.

Anthropic, which relies heavily on Nvidia hardware to train its models, is calling for tighter restrictions that could limit Nvidia’s overseas business and revenue from chip sales.

Anthropic argued that compute access is the key strategic chokepoint in the race to build frontier AI. The company proposed lowering the export threshold for Tier 2 countries, tightening the rules to reduce smuggling risks, and increasing funding for enforcement.

“Maintaining America’s compute advantage through export controls is essential for national security and economic prosperity,” Anthropic wrote.

In a sharply worded response to Anthropic, an Nvidia spokesperson blasted the use of policy to limit competitiveness.

“China, with half of the world’s AI researchers, has highly capable AI experts at every layer of the AI stack. America cannot manipulate regulators to capture victory in AI,” the spokesperson said.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who visited with Chinese trade officials in mid-April, said Wednesday in Washington, D.C. that China is “not behind” the U.S. in AI and praised Huawei as a top global tech company.

“They’re incredible in computing and network technology, all these essential capabilities to advance AI,” Huang said. “They have made enormous progress in the last several years.”