Stock Market Today, Oct. 23: AT&T Slides on SpaceX Cell-Site Talks

AT&T (T) plunged 7.96% after Bloomberg reported that SpaceX (SPCX) is negotiating access to roughly 80,000 cell sites to build a fourth nationwide wireless network. The report reignited carrier competition fears and pressured the wider wireless sector.

The selloff hit despite a clean earnings print. On October 21, AT&T beat earnings estimates and raised its 2026 guidance. Two days later, that good news was overwhelmed by a new competitive threat: SpaceX entering wireless with satellite-supplemented terrestrial coverage.

The move shows how fast sentiment can flip. A beat-and-raise was not enough to defend the stock once the market started pricing a new entrant with access to a large cell-site footprint. Interpretation: investors are treating the 80,000-site figure as a signal that SpaceX's ambitions could be network-scale rather than niche, and they are discounting incumbent carriers accordingly.

The source names AT&T specifically, but frames the pressure as sector-wide. Peers in the wireless group, including VZ and TMUS, sit in the same competitive crosshairs, though the source gives no individual price moves for them.