Telecom tycoon Charlie Ergen has famously done stints as a professional poker player – and now he might be angling for a table with Elon Musk and Donald Trump, On The Money has learned.
According to top industry executives, the mercurial billionaire behind the Dish satellite TV network is gearing up for a marathon of betting and bluffing with the world’s richest man on one hand and the most powerful on the other.
The stakes could include power, money – and possibly a major slug of SpaceX, some industry insiders speculate.
In one seat there’s Musk, who has made no secret of his desire to take control of the gobs of wireless spectrum that Ergen has been hoarding for years. Musk believes it is underutilized, and wants it to build out his SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service.
Then there’s Trump and his Federal Communications Commission chief, Brendan Carr. Sources say Carr agrees with Musk and has been urging Ergen to do something with his spectrum. That could mean using it to build out his Boost wireless carrier, or selling the spectrum – or facing the consequences, like a government takeover of the valuable licenses.
This is where things could get interesting, say industry insiders like Peter Adderton, a veteran telecom executive who is now running the MobileX carrier service. They note that President Trump – Carr’s boss — is a dealmaker himself. He’s poised to squeeze payments out of Nvidia to do business in China. He holds a “golden share” in US Steel as a condition for its sale to Japan’s Nippon Steel. He arranged for the US to take a 10% stake in Intel to prop up what he considers a vital industry.
Trump’s next move might be to get a stake in SpaceX using Musk’s desire — and some would say need — for spectrum to cut the government in on one of Musk’s crown jewels. In addition to its rocket business, SpaceX owns the spectrum-hungry Starlink, which connects rural America and other remote parts of the world to the web.
“Elon doesn’t want to pay up for the spectrum and this type of deal makes it happen,” Adderton tells me.
Sounds far fetched? Maybe, but consider: Trump’s relationship with Musk has been volatile, but signs are that it’s on the mend. Musk, meanwhile, has told people he doesn’t want to overpay Ergen for the spectrum he wants.
Trump has already called off Carr from seizing Ergen’s spectrum once so he could sell some of it to AT&T. Who says he couldn’t turn around, seize the AWS-4 and sell it to Elon in exchange for a 10% stake in SpaceX? Musk might be willing to swap a chunk of the company – which already feasts off government business – for a sweetheart spectrum deal.
Recall that Ergen, meanwhile, owns EchoStar, which controls both Dish and Boost. He’s legendary for his savvy maneuvering. Many in the industry – and Carr himself – would say that’s what Ergen has been doing with Boost – slowly walking his promised buildout to gain an edge and maybe pump up the price for unused spectrum.
Nothing wrong with that, but when the US government blessed the Sprint/T-Mobile merger during Trump’s first term, it was promised that Boost would become big enough to create competition and lower costs for consumers.
Carr, for one, believes Boost isn’t close to competing with heavy hitters Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T. Accordingly, sources say he has been telling Ergen to either use it or lose it. Under law the FCC could take it and sell it at auction.
Ergen decided to sell at least some of it, rather than build. Yet, even with Ergen’s latest deal to sell a chunk of his spectrum held by EchoStar to AT&T – a $23 billion deal announced this week – he is still sitting on a bunch, including the stuff known as AWS-4 that Musk wants for Starlink.
Ergen and the Trump administration had no comment.
