Elon Musk’s growing SpaceX empire sends AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile shares plunging

Elon Musk’s plan for SpaceX to “become a major mobile carrier in the U.S.” sent shares of the nation’s big three wireless carriers sliding by double digits Friday, wiping out more than $50 billion in market value before lunch.

“Once we receive final FCC approval, Starlink Mobile will deploy a flexible architecture combining our satellite-to-mobile constellation in space with an advanced terrestrial deployment that can seamlessly connect devices everywhere,” the company said late Thursday.

It also announced that the Federal Communications Commission had approved the launch of 15,000 new satellites, also under Starlink Mobile, which is a subsidiary of SpaceX.

Shares of AT&T fell 9.8%, Verizon dropped 8.7%, while T-Mobile US plunged 13.3%. For Verizon, today’s performance was its worst-one day drop since 2002. It was T-Mobile’s worst day since 2011.

Shares of Charter and of Comcast, the parent company of NBC News, also fell Friday. Both companies sell wireless services under their own brands using Verizon’s infrastructure.

The announcement from SpaceX marked Musk’s latest step to expand his global tech empire. The world’s richest man and its first-ever trillionaire, Musk’s net worth as of Thursday was about $990 billion.

Musk’s constellation of companies already includes electric vehicle maker Tesla…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business