In February, hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman revealed he had acquired a roughly $2 billion stake in Uber. Known for his activist approach and tendency to push for major changes at companies he invests in, Ackman hasn’t always been welcomed by corporate leaders. But Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says the relationship has been entirely positive, calling Ackman a “legendary investor” whose involvement has inspired the company to launch new features.
“I’ve always admired Bill, so when we found out he was a shareholder, it was like, ‘Right on,’” Khosrowshahi said at the Bloomberg Tech Summit in San Francisco yesterday (June 5). “We’ve got a great relationship,” he added.
Ackman called himself a “long-term customer and admirer” of Uber in a February post on X. He noted that he first invested in the company through a small venture fund and remains actively engaged with the product. “He’s intensely interested in the product and talks to his drivers, so he gives me a lot of feedback,” Khosrowshahi said.
And his feedback is taken seriously. Earlier this year, the investor posted on X about the difficulty of ordering multiple Ubers at once for himself, his children and his mother after an event. In response, Uber began developing a feature to address that use case. According to Khosrowshahi, the resulting tool has “proven to be a really cool feature.”
Pershing Square, Ackman’s hedge fund, now holds 30.3 million shares in Uber. Though he once described Uber’s past leadership as “erratic,” Ackman praised Khosrowshahi’s tenure, saying in the same post, “We believe that Uber is one of the best managed and highest quality businesses in the world.”
Pershing Square, which manages more than $17 billion in assets, is a major investor in the restaurant and hospitality sectors. The hedge fund holds $1 billion worth of Chipotle shares and a $1.5 billion stake in Restaurant Brands International, the parent company of Burger King and Tim Hortons. Ackman has previously called restaurants a “really simple business”—one in which Pershing has never lost money. The fund also maintains large positions in Hilton.
Ackman recently made his foray into the mobility sector. Earlier this year, he acquired a nearly 20 percent stake in Hertz, citing the car rental company’s strong position in the used car market amid rising tariffs. He also floated the idea of a future partnership between Hertz and Uber focused on rolling out autonomous vehicle (AV) fleets.
Uber has already made significant moves in the AV space, partnering with Waymo to offer self-driving taxis in Austin and Atlanta and investing in U.K.-based AV startup Wayve. “Ultimately, we think it’ll expand the marketplace by making safe transportation in cities accessible to everyone,” Khosrowshahi said at the Bloomberg Tech Summit.
As advances in A.I. continue to propel autonomous driving, Uber acknowledges the potential threat to driver and courier jobs. However, the company is also using the technology to create new forms of “knowledge work” for its contractors. According to Khosrowshahi, Uber now offers opportunities for drivers and couriers to earn additional income by labeling maps, translating languages and grading A.I. responses. “Over the next five to ten years, this work will be a significant part of the overall opportunities that we’re giving to our drivers and couriers,” he said.
