SpaceX wants to buy Boost Mobile to create the fourth American operator

Musk comes back to Earth. SpaceX is negotiating the purchase of Boost Mobile or access to its network, information revealed Monday, November 2 by the Washington Post. After contracting $40 billion in debt, Elon Musk's company is aiming for a new growth driver: becoming the fourth mobile operator in the USA.

On November 2, the Washington Post cited two people familiar with the negotiations. Elon Musk reportedly met Charlie Ergen, president of EchoStar, in October.

Boost Mobile is a low-cost operator, which does not have antennas. The company rents the network from AT&T and T-Mobile and resells packages under its brand, a virtual operator model with customers but no network.

The target market is huge. The MoffettNathanson firm estimates the American mobile telephony market at $235 billion. A successful combination of satellites and antennas could take a significant part of this.

The ambition goes beyond telephony. Musk set SpaceX a goal of $1 trillion in revenue in 2027, a milestone that mobile telephony would help reach.

To move quickly, Musk would have first requested network access from AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, which the three giants refused to grant to a future competitor. Boost's door would provide entry from the rear.

The giants are moving forward too. At the beginning of October, they founded a joint venture to accelerate the direct connection between satellites and telephones.

On the stock market, the reaction was immediate. EchoStar stock jumped 7.3% in the morning to $104, while the three giants fell around 2% and SpaceX regained 1.7%. The share of SpaceX, which was listed on the stock market this summer, had hit its lowest level in two months the day before.

The two companies know each other well. In 2025, EchoStar sold a large part of its frequencies to SpaceX for $17 billion, half of which was in cash, Dow Jones reports. EchoStar retains a small stake in SpaceX.

Starlink already operates more than 12,000 satellites and connects rural areas to the internet, but telephony is more demanding than broadband. The signal from space does not penetrate walls well.

Starlink already offers, with T-Mobile, a direct satellite connection for phones. This service targets white areas, where no antenna passes.

For example, a call made in the basement of a building requires a terrestrial antenna nearby, which no constellation provides today. Dense cities remain the terrain of terrestrial networks.

Building this network from scratch would take four to six years, according to Verizon executives, a timeframe that Musk considers too long. Getting Boost Mobile is like buying a shortcut.

The shortcut has its toll, because the contracts that connect Boost to the AT&T and T-Mobile networks do not automatically pass to a new buyer. Both operators will have to give the green light. Verizon has already warned that its own leases do not transfer.