By Alexander Lomax
It’s been a great year for our friends at Axon, hasn’t it? We probably don’t have to remind you of their egregious apartment megacomplex plans, their rezoning plan which seems to have shortchanged Arizona schools to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, the bullying of the Scottsdale City Council, and the end around at the state legislature (but you can read it all here). And like the bully that always gets its way, its recent financial news was another cherry on top.
Axon Enterprise’s stock popped 16% after the TASER maker topped Wall Street’s estimates in their latest quarterly report, with Q2 2025 revenue hitting $669 million, up 33% year over year. Shareholders are celebrating, but don’t tell that to the nearly 27,000 Scottsdale residents who signed petitions opposing the company’s grandiose apartment complex plans.
Here’s where things get interesting: Axon paid $49.1 million for 74 acres of State Trust Land in 2020, exceeding full appraised market value by more than $17 million. Now they want to squeeze nearly 1,900 housing units onto the property—what opponents call potentially the largest apartment complex in Arizona history.
The company that can apparently afford to overpay by $17 million for land now wants Scottsdale taxpayers to subsidize their density dreams. Critics argue that Axon is attempting to circumvent the “integrity and professionalism” of the State Land Department by going through Scottsdale for the zoning change—essentially gaming the system twice.
It’s a curious corporate strategy: buy State Trust Land meant to benefit Arizona’s schools, then try to minimize what you’ll actually contribute to those same schools through creative zoning maneuvers. The Arizona House even passed a contentious bill that would override Scottsdale’s referendum efforts, because nothing says “good neighbor” quite like legislative muscle-flexing.
With their stock riding high and cash flowing freely, one has to wonder: if Axon can beat earnings expectations so handily, why exactly do they need density subsidies to build their corporate campus? Perhaps the real question isn’t whether they can afford to do it right—it’s whether they simply choose not to.