Key facts
- Höttges said SpaceX would need at least €200 billion to compete in mobile, adding: "If he has the money, go for it."
- Deutsche Telekom owns a 55% controlling share of T-Mobile US, the US carrier.
- Höttges said an antenna 10 or 100 meters away makes a 400-kilometer satellite link unnecessary.
- Höttges said Musk's chipsets, data centers, AI platforms and satellites could form a vertically integrated communications company in five to ten years.
- Höttges said he takes SpaceX "super serious" because the car industry ignored Tesla for too long.
Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges said on the company's third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, November 5, 2026, that SpaceX would need at least €200 billion if it wants to compete in the mobile industry. "If he has the money, go for it," Höttges said, according to Business Insider.
Deutsche Telekom owns a 55% controlling share of T-Mobile US. Höttges said satellite-based networks are not sufficient to handle the mobile coverage consumers have grown accustomed to in well-developed areas. "If you have an antenna 10 meters or 100 meters away from you, why should you go 400 kilometers up and down?" he asked.
Höttges said established carriers see terrestrial networks, built from tens of thousands of towers and hundreds of megahertz of spectrum over many years, as the only viable competition to their services. "Welcome to the party," he said of SpaceX's Starlink mobile plans.
He said he is still watching Musk. Höttges said the chipsets, data centers, AI platforms and satellites Musk owns could support a new kind of vertically integrated communications company in five to ten years, and he cited the car industry's response to Tesla. "That is why I'm saying I take that super serious, because I was witnessing what happened to the car industry," he said. "They were ignoring it for too long, and we have to face the situation."