Charter Execs Face Class Action After $9 Billion Stock Drop
Investor says executives downplayed customer losses tied to the Affordable Connectivity Program’s termination.
WASHINGTON, August 18, 2025 – Charter Communications CEO Chris Winfrey and CFO Jessica Fischer have been sued in a class action.
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The core allegation: Charter allegedly misled investors about the financial impact of the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program.
The suit, filed Thursday by plaintiff Mark Sandoval in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, alleged that the executives issued “materially false and misleading statements” that led investors to believe the company could quickly move past the loss of the federal subsidy. The ACP, which provided $30 monthly discounts for low-income households until funding ran out in May 2024, had supported about 5 million Charter customers.
According to the suit, Charter’s stock “traded at artificially inflated prices” during the period between July 26, 2024, and July 24, 2025. It sought damages on behalf of “hundreds or thousands of members in the proposed class” who were allegedly hurt by Charter’s stock decline. The case is backed by law firms Shamis & Gentile and Edelsberg Law.
Plaintiffs’ argued the truth emerged with Charter’s July 25 earnings report, which showed a loss of 117,000 broadband subscribers in the second quarter, sparking a nearly 20 percent drop in shares and wiping out about $9.8 billion in market value.
On the earnings call that day, Fischer acknowledged Charter’s profit growth hinged on a one-time $45 million boost. After adjustments, about $38 million of that flowed directly to the bottom line – meaning without it, EBITDA would have been flat or even declined.
Winfrey told analysts that “sales are up, and churn is relatively stable,” though he conceded many losses were from former ACP customers, who he said were “economically challenged and have a higher nonpay rate systemically without the benefit of the subsidy.”
“We continued to do a very good job in managing the end of the program, and we've retained the vast majority of our customers who were previously receiving an ACP benefit,” Fischer said during the second quarter earnings.
“We have not seen anything significant … in nonpay disconnect rates,” Winfrey claimed.
The suit alleged Charter “had no reasonable basis to state [it] was successfully executing operations, managing causes of Internet customer declines, or provide overly optimistic statements about the long term trajectory of the company and EBITDA growth.”
Charter’s stock has continued to slide since, closing last week at $267.80, down about 14 percent from its post-earnings close of $310.50 a share.
At the same time, Winfrey has been buying more Charter stock. Winfrey spent about $1.5 million on Charter stock in February 2024 at $295.29 per share and another $1 million on July 31, 2025, at $273.00 per share. Both investments remain in the red at current prices.
Charter Communications declined to a request for comment.
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