Paul Singer’s Toyota Campaign Tests the Limits of Japan’s Corporate Tradition

Paul Singer, the hedge fund billionaire founder of Elliott Investment Management, is known for ousting Jack Dorsey from Twitter (now X) and for seizing an Argentine naval vessel to recover billions in sovereign debt. But orchestrating this week’s sale of a 7.1 percent stake in Japan’s Toyota Industries as part of a roughly $43 billion takeover may prove one of his most consequential victories yet.

Singer, 81, pushed Akio Toyoda, the grandson of Toyota founder Kiichiro Toyoda and the current chairman of Toyota Motor...