Celsius Stock Crashed on Earnings, Then a Rockstar Energy Billionaire Said He Wants the CEO Job

Celsius Holdings reported second-quarter 2026 revenue of $817.9 million on August 6, 2026, up 10.6% from $739.3 million a year earlier — a record Q2 for the company — but the number fell short of analyst estimates, and profitability moved the wrong way even as revenue grew. Adjusted diluted earnings per share came in at $0.36, down from $0.47 in the prior-year quarter. GAAP diluted EPS fell further, to $0.14 from $0.33, weighed down by $80.9 million in distributor termination fees tied to integrating the Rockstar Energy brand. Gross margin declined to 48.1% from 51.5%. Shares fell as much as 18% before the opening bell as the market absorbed the miss.

The following day brought a separate, unrelated jolt. Rockstar Energy's founder — who built the company in 2001 with a mortgage against his California condo and sold it to PepsiCo in 2020 for more than $4 billion, and who legally changed his name in 2025 from Russell Weiner to Russ Savage — told CNBC he has quietly built a stake of roughly 12 million Celsius shares, about 4.7% of the company and worth an estimated $300 million at current prices.

Savage said he had offered Celsius's board advice more than a year earlier that was largely ignored, and that this week's earnings miss was the breaking point. His criticism centered on organizational bloat: too many layers of management, too much cost, and no single point of accountability. He put himself forward as a replacement for current CEO John Fieldly, arguing Celsius needs one person making decisions and paying attention to every detail rather than a committee-driven process.

CELH shares jumped as much as 8% on the report — a notable reversal given the stock had just fallen sharply on the earnings miss a day earlier. The size of the bounce reflects how the market is treating an activist campaign from a credible operator, rather than the underlying earnings trend, as the more market-moving development: Savage's own energy-drink track record with Rockstar gives his critique of Celsius's execution more weight than a typical activist letter would carry, even though nothing about the company's actual Q2 results changed.