Tuberculosis (TB) is a zoonotic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection. After Mtb invades the host, innate immune cells such as macrophages activate T cells and trigger the host’s adaptive immune response through processing and presenting the antigens of Mtb to T cells. T cells play important roles in fighting against Mtb infection, which not only can secrete a variety of cytokines to enhance the immune response of the host, but also directly kill the target cells infected by Mtb, thereby inhibiting the survival of Mtb. However, Mtb can also evades host immune clearance by interfering the activation process of T cells, leading to persistent infection of host. This paper systematically elucidates the sources, subgroups, and activation mechanisms of T cells, summarizes the main factors by which Mtb promotes T cell activation, provides detailed introduction of how Mtb achieves immune evasion by inhibiting the activation of CD4⁺T and CD8⁺T cells, summarizes and envisions the important role of T cell activation in resisting Mtb infection, aiming to offer new perspective for a deeper exploration of the role and mechanisms of T cell activation in the process of Mtb infection.