Now that T-Mobile has completed its acquisition of Sprint and US Cellular, things are a bit quiet on the carrier front. We haven’t heard any rumblings of another carrier looking to buy another carrier out. However, it seems that if anyone were to buy a carrier, it would be Elon Musk, who is open to the idea of buying out Verizon .
Elon Musk willing to buy Verizon
Musk recently appeared on the All-In podcast , where he spoke about SpaceX acquiring EchoStar’s AWS-4 and H-block spectrum licenses . These licenses have been allocated for both satellite and mobile communications. This could help SpaceX’s direct-to-cell goals, and it seems that Musk is already looking beyond that.
However, the problem right now is that the frequencies SpaceX bought aren’t supported by the chipsets in our phones, at least not now. It would probably take a couple more years before they do.
According to Musk, “So the phones that are able to use the spectrum that was acquired probably start shipping in around two years. And then we also need to build the satellites that are going to communicate on those frequencies. So in parallel, we’re building the satellites and working with the handset makers to add these frequencies to the phones.”
Verizon’s on good ground
Verizon is currently one of the three largest carriers in the US. It is also doing well financially and like we said, last we heard, it wasn’t looking to sell. However, Musk does have the resources and tenacity to pull such an acquisition off if it were to happen.
A few years ago, Musk bought Twitter before rebranding it to X. He also started his own AI company, xAI , after leaving OpenAI, which he helped found. Musk has a net worth in the billions. A recent report suggested that he could also be the world’s first trillionaire if a recently-proposed Tesla pay package were to go through.
At that time and with all that money, buying Verizon would not be an issue for him.
