Investing.com -- Elliott Investment Management has built a sizeable stake in Deutsche Telekom and is pushing the German carrier to abandon a potential full merger with T-Mobile US in favor of larger share buybacks, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Elliott’s move puts the activist directly at odds with Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Hoettges, who has been pursuing a full combination of the two companies since at least April 2026. Deutsche Telekom holds roughly a 53% stake in T-Mobile US, and Hoettges’s plan would have created the world’s largest wireless operator by market capitalization. Instead, Elliott is pressing management to consider alternative paths to shareholder value, with buybacks cited as the preferred mechanism, according to Bloomberg’s sources.

The campaign arrives as Deutsche Telekom shares have fallen roughly 9% in Frankfurt over the past 12 months, giving the company a market value of approximately €138 billion ($160 billion), per Bloomberg’s report. That underperformance relative to broader European equities hands Elliott a ready-made argument: capital allocated to a sprawling cross-border merger may be better returned directly to shareholders.

Elliott’s specific stake size in Deutsche Telekom has not been publicly disclosed. Under German securities rules, investors must file once an outright position reaches or exceeds 3% of a company’s shares, so the first regulatory signal of Elliott’s true footprint may be forthcoming.

Wednesday’s news is not the first sign of trouble for the proposed tie-up. Semafor reported in late July 2026 that T-Mobile’s own executives had informed Deutsche Telekom they no longer support the roughly $300 billion merger, citing shareholder concerns and potential regulatory headwinds. US regulators were widely expected to require that T-Mobile revenue remain invested domestically as a condition of any deal — a constraint that would have complicated Deutsche Telekom’s strategic rationale for the combination.

Elliott’s European activism is intensifying on multiple fronts. Reuters reported on September 1 that the fund had also built a position in French industrial-gas group Air Liquide, where it is pushing for margin improvements. Bernstein analysts, commenting on the Air Liquide situation, noted that "Elliott’s involvement could increase pressure on management and a share buyback announcement at the company’s scheduled capital markets day in October could act as a near-term catalyst for the stock", a playbook that maps directly onto the Deutsche Telekom campaign.