Rockstar Energy's Founder Builds a $300M Celsius Stake and Wants the CEO Job

Celsius Holdings has spent the week absorbing two shocks in a row. First a weak quarter that sent the stock down sharply. Then a familiar name from the energy-drink business showing up on its shareholder roster with a plan to run the company himself.

Russ Savage, the entrepreneur who built Rockstar Energy before selling it to PepsiCo, has disclosed a stake of about 4.7% in Celsius, worth roughly $300 million at current prices. According to reporting from CNBC, which broke the news, Savage is not a passive investor. He wants Celsius to replace its top leadership, starting with chief executive John Fieldly, and he is offering himself as the next CEO.

For anyone who followed the category over the past two decades, the name may need a footnote. Savage founded Rockstar as Russell Weiner in 2001 and legally changed his name in 2025. He is the same operator who grew the brand from a mortgaged condo into a company PepsiCo acquired in 2020 for about $3.85 billion.

A weak quarter sets the stage

Savage went public a day after Celsius reported second-quarter results that fell short of Wall Street. Revenue came in at $817.9 million, up about 11% from a year earlier but below what analysts expected, and adjusted earnings of $0.36 a share missed as well. Gross margin slipped to 48.1% from 51.5%. Core Celsius-branded sales fell close to 12%, which management attributed to a deliberate trimming of the product line and a paused innovation pipeline while it folds in recent acquisitions.

The stock reaction told the story of the week. Shares dropped roughly 18% on the earnings miss, then rallied about 12% the next day as news of Savage's stake and campaign spread, the biggest single-day gain in a year.

Savage's argument for a leadership change

Savage's argument, as reported, is about accountability. He believes Celsius carries too many management layers and too much cost, with no single person owning the outcome. He wants Fieldly out along with the operating and marketing leadership, and he has framed the loss of retail shelf space as the real danger, the kind of slip that is hard to reverse in a business where visibility at the cooler drives sales. He has said he offered the company guidance more than a year ago and was brushed off.

An unusual wrinkle: Celsius owns the brand he created

The pitch carries an unusual wrinkle. Celsius already owns the North American rights to Rockstar, which it picked up from PepsiCo as part of a broader portfolio push. In other words, Savage is agitating at a company that now controls the brand he created. Celsius also closed its $1.8 billion purchase of Alani Nu, a deal that has become one of its main growth engines. In the second quarter Alani Nu contributed about $364 million in revenue and Rockstar roughly $67 million, even as the flagship Celsius line softened.

PepsiCo's stake complicates the fight

Complicating any leadership fight is PepsiCo itself. Under a 2022 agreement, PepsiCo is Celsius's primary U.S. distributor and holds a stake of around 8.5% along with a board seat, the product of a $550 million investment. Any campaign to reshape the company runs through a cap table that includes one of the largest beverage distributors in the world.

Celsius remains one of the most purchased energy drinks in the United States, accounting for roughly one in five purchases in the category, and it competes directly with Monster and Red Bull. The question Savage is putting to shareholders is whether a brand that grew that fast can hold its position through a rough patch, and whether the person who built a rival from scratch is the one to steer it.

Celsius has not signaled that it plans to change course. For now the company has an activist-minded shareholder with a large stake, a public argument, and a track record in exactly the business it is trying to defend.