Elon Musk and the end of a telecom tycoon’s dream

In recent weeks, satellite business EchoStar has clinched multibillion-dollar deals with SpaceX and AT&T. It may sound like boom times for founder Charlie Ergen, but these deals illustrate something different: the abandoning of an ambitious, decades-long quest to build his own mobile phone network. The FT’s Wall Street editor Sujeet Indap and US trading and crypto correspondent Jill R Shah explain how Ergen’s fortunes changed, and the role Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump played in that.

Clips from CNBC, Reuters, Yahoo Finance, Echostar/Vimeo

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For further reading:
How a deal with Elon Musk helped a telecoms tycoon save his company from bankruptcy (ft.com/content/4681fa28-eb14-4cd3-9c2c-f26fabd…)
Trump forces billionaire to fold (ft.com/content/da737bc5-49b0-46c5-b645-6af6b89…)
Charlie Ergen: Media mogul at a Sprint (ft.com/content/ac99dfd4-a774-11e2-9fbe-00144fe…)

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Follow Sujeet Indap on X (@sindap (x.com/sindap?lang=en)), or on Bluesky (@sindap.bsky.social (bsky.app/profile/sindap.bsky.social)). Follow Jill Shah on X (@jillrshah (x.com/jillrshah?lang=en)). Michela Tindera is on X (@mtindera07 (twitter.com/mtindera07)) and Bluesky (@mtindera.ft.com (bsky.app/profile/mtindera.ft.com)), or follow her on LinkedIn for updates about the show and more.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com (ft.com/content/1a7af4eb-17c3-4256-b056-5c2d790…)
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