AT&T and Verizon tumble as Musk’s SpaceX plots direct mobile threat

AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile took a beating on Wednesday as investors braced for an orbital clash with Elon Musk.

Shares of AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) both fell 4%, while T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) slid 2%, following a Semafor report that SpaceX is plotting a direct assault on the U.S. wireless oligopoly.

The rocket titan is actively hunting urban-grade spectrum—either by snapping up rivals or crashing next year’s federal auction—to build out dense coverage in major cities.

The selloff highlights growing Wall Street anxiety that Starlink is morphing from a rural satellite operator into a full-scale mobile network operator:

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  SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell recently showcased a prototype mobile handset to investors and floated plans to build ground-based tower networks, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times.

  
  


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  In its IPO pitch deck, SpaceX pegged the global mobile addressable market at $740 billion, with Starlink’s mobile division alone projected to hit $15 billion in annual revenue this year.

  
  


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  To challenge landline-and-tower incumbents inside office buildings and under heavy tree cover, SpaceX is developing hybrid satellite-terrestrial technologies to seamlessly bridge the gap.

  
  

Legacy carriers have dropped $110 billion over the past decade grabbing low-band spectrum to defend their turf. But with Musk eyeing a hybrid orbit-to-ground network, telecom’s long-standing moat is suddenly looking vulnerable.

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