AT&T stock down 7.96% on SpaceX cell-site talks

• AT&T closed at $20.93 on Oct 23, down 7.96% from Thursday's $22.74. • Drop followed reports SpaceX is in talks for 80,000+ US cell sites, no confirmed lease found. • Crown Castle rose 9.06% and American Tower rose 4.08% while AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile fell. AT&T shares closed at $20.93 on Friday, October 23, 2026, down $1.81 (7.96%) from Thursday's $22.74, on Nasdaq volume of 99,813,650 shares — about 1.8 times Thursday's volume. The Motley Fool's 4:00 p.m. ET snapshot confirmed the same figures and put AT&T's market cap at $140.99 billion. The decline followed a Bloomberg report, relayed by Investor's Business Daily, that SpaceX is in talks for at least 80,000 U.S. cell sites, reportedly including Crown Castle. No AT&T filing — including its October 21 8-K — describes a signed lease. Tower landlords rallied on the news: Crown Castle gained 9.06%, American Tower 4.08%, and SBA Communications 3.57%. Carriers fell instead: AT&T -7.96%, Verizon -1.19%, and T-Mobile -7.71% to $146.54, a 252-session low. The move also builds on AT&T's October 21 earnings release, which reported revenue of $32.3 billion (up 5.3%), adjusted EPS of $0.65 (versus $0.54 a year earlier), and adjusted EBITDA of $12.5 billion (up 5.4%). Free cash flow was $5.0 billion. CFO Pascal Desroches raised the 2026 adjusted EPS outlook to around $2.40, up from a prior $2.25–$2.35 range, attributing the change mainly to Mexico held-for-sale depreciation. Total debt stood at $159.6 billion, with net debt of $149.8 billion after the EchoStar spectrum purchase, pushing net debt to adjusted EBITDA to 3.13 times from 2.68 times. CEO John Stankey downplayed the spectrum deal's weight, saying he wouldn't "over rotate on one carrier of low-band spectrum." AT&T's $20.93 close is still above its 252-session low of $20.48 (set July 1) and well below its 252-session high of $29.10. The stock sits 10.96% under its 20-session average close ($23.505) and 15.44% under its 50-session average ($24.75). The week finished down 10.71% from the prior Friday. On the operating side, AT&T added 379,000 postpaid phone subscribers with 0.92% churn, plus 769,000 Advanced Connectivity internet net adds (442,000 fiber, 327,000 fixed wireless) and about 350,000 additional converged relationships.