Tesla’s “activist shareholders” appear to be one of many largest threats to the corporate and its CEO, Elon Musk, who has spoken extensively about them in latest instances. They’re as much as their newest bit of labor in opposition to the corporate, suing each Tesla and Musk, accusing them of securities fraud by alleging they hid “important danger” over the Robotaxi launch in Austin, Texas.
On Monday night time, a gaggle of shareholders sued Tesla and Musk in a proposed class motion lawsuit in Texas federal court docket. They declare Tesla misled buyers in regards to the security of the automobiles used within the Robotaxi rollout in Austin, which began on June 22.
The go well with signifies that movies present the automobiles “rushing, exhibiting sudden braking, driving over a curb, coming into the unsuitable lane, and dropping passengers off in the midst of multilane roads.” Reuters first reported on the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs are in search of damages for shareholders between April 19, 2023, and June 22, 2025.
Tesla’s Robotaxi platform has been working for lower than two months, and the corporate has already expanded its geofence in Austin twice.
? Tesla Austin Robotaxi geofence sizes (in sq. miles):
Preliminary: 6/22 – ~20 sq. miles
First Enlargement: 7/14 – ~42 sq. miles
Second Enlargement: 8/3 – ~80 sq. miles pic.twitter.com/IwnvSJseE4
– TESSATIVE (@TESSIET) August 3, 2025
Within the roughly six weeks that Robotaxi has been operational, Tesla has solely had one incident reported to the Austin Authorities, and it was a “Security Concern” in June 2025. Since July 2023, which is when autonomous automobile operation started in Austin, 130 incidents have been reported. AV Journey, Cruise, Waymo, and Zoox additionally function in Austin.
Waymo has essentially the most incidents with 73. Its first was in June 2024 when a unit blocked visitors.
Activist Shareholders
Musk has warned that activist shareholders are probably harmful to each Tesla and his place as CEO. He lately spoke about them in the course of the Q2 Earnings Name concerning his stake within the firm:
“That could be a main concern for me, as I’ve talked about prior to now. I hope that’s addressed on the upcoming shareholders assembly. However, yeah, it’s a huge deal. I wish to discover that I’ve acquired so little management that I can simply be ousted by activist shareholders after having constructed this military of humanoid robots. I believe my management over Tesla, Inc. needs to be sufficient to make sure that it goes in an excellent path, however not a lot management that I can’t be thrown out if I am going loopy.”
Tesla’s Board yesterday made an try to assist safe Musk’s stake by providing him an enormous 96 million share pay bundle of restricted inventory. It can solely assist his stake within the firm bump up barely to 14.6 % from 12.9 %.
