Verizon stock heads for worst day since 2002 as SpaceX U.S. network plans whack telcos

TechPublished Fri, Oct 9 202612:26 PM EDTKey PointsTelecom stocks sank on Friday after Elon Musk's SpaceX announced an agreement to purchase a nationwide spectrum portfolio.Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T all sold off while SpaceX climbed slightly. FCC Chair Brendan Carr told CNBC that competition in the spectrum market was "really good news for the American consumers."Telecommunications stocks sold off on Friday after Elon Musk's SpaceX announced an agreement to purchase a nationwide spectrum portfolio, aiming to expand its Starlink internet into mobile service.Verizon was down roughly 7% on the news, and is pacing its worst day since 2002. Shares of T-Mobile were down 12% while AT&T fell around 10%. SpaceX stock climbed slightly, around 1% for the day. The deal includes acquiring the spectrum from Grain Management, which SpaceX described as a "license portfolio of up to 14 megahertz of paired spectrum in the 800 MHz band," in a Thursday statement. FCC Chair Brendan Carr, whose agency will oversee approval of the deal, said that competition in the spectrum market was "really good news for the American consumers" in a CNBC interview. "We're probably going to bring over $100 billion of spectrum into the market over the next two years, so we're seeing a lot of competition," Carr told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Friday. "There's going to be moves in the market. People are going to try to out-compete, out-innovate, and I think that's great. We're going to see how this plays out. It's not for us ultimately to pick winners and losers," he added. Stock Chart IconStock chart iconVerizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile stock chart.Read more CNBC tech newsGoogle ordered to halt work on two data centers in 'Texas of Europe'Meta joins with group of companies to tame 'chaos' of doing business with AI botsAnduril lands $2.9 billion Navy submarine shipyard contract days after Luckey joins Pentagon weapons groupAnthropic expands Claude Startups program in bid to snag founders and fast-growing companies