Telecom mogul Charlie Ergen’s war chest is at risk after a U.S. regulator questioned his company’s use of cellular and satellite spectrum licenses—including a chunk of airwaves long sought by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The Federal Communications Commission told Ergen, the chairman and co-founder of network operator EchoStar that the agency’s staff would investigate the company’s compliance with federal requirements to build a nationwide 5G network. EchoStar owns both the Dish Network pay-TV brand and Boost Mobile’s wireless service. 

The U.S. government in 2019 set several construction milestones for Dish to maintain cellular licenses worth billions of dollars. The company has spent years wiring thousands of cellphone towers to help Boost become a wireless operator that could rival AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, but the project has been slow-going. Boost’s subscriber base has shrunk in the five years since Ergen bought the brand from Sprint.

“The terms of the deal were clear,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr wrote to Ergen in a letter viewed by The Wall Street Journal. “The FCC structured the buildout obligations to prevent spectrum warehousing and to ensure that Americans would gain broader access to high-speed wireless services, including in underserved and rural areas.”…

Ergen and Musk have been sparring for years in regulatory filings over spectrum rights. The battle has intensified as Apple and other big technology companies press for an edge in orbit….SpaceX said in an April 2025 letter that EchoStar’s spectrum in the 2 gigahertz band “remains ripe for sharing among next-generation satellite systems.” EchoStar accused SpaceX of seeking to “cloak another land grab for even more free spectrum.”

Excerpts from Drew FitzGerald, FCC Threatens Charlie Ergen’s Hold on Satellite, 5G Spectrum Licenses, May 14, 2025