Here are 4 leaders who could take Elon Musk's place if he was to step down

Gwynne Shotwell is the COO of SpaceX, the other company that Musk is CEO of. Throughout his controversies in 2018, she was routinely named among the best candidates to assist or replace Musk.

That's largely because Musk respects the Northwestern grad, who's both an engineer and a mathematician, not to mention a skilled manager, overseeing the day-to-day operations of SpaceX's launch business.

It's unlikely that any seasoned executive from the traditional auto industry would take the Tesla CEO job, given that the company tends to do things its own way.

An exception might by Posawatz, a General Motors veteran who brought the innovative gas-electric hybrid Chevy Volt to market 2010 and then jumped to Tesla rival Fisker Automotive in 2012 — right before the company went bankrupt in 2013.

He's been out of the mainstream of the car business for a few years, but he knows how to run innovative electric car programs and has been a excellent advocate for the technology.

Not gonna happen, but Krafcik is among the most respected and experienced leaders the auto industry has ever produced. He actually got his start in the 1980s at what's now Tesla's Fremont, CA factory — it was then called NUMMI and was a joint venture by General Motors and Toyota to bring so-called "lean manufacturing" the US car industry.

He later saw Hyundai through the financial crisis, as the head of its North American operations.

When Google hired him in 2015 to be CEO of what was then known as a the Google Car project, later Waymo, it was a signal that Google was serious about bringing its self-driving technology to market.

Nobody in the transportation business so fully combines Krafick background with big auto and big tech.