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 closed down 8.75% on the news, its worst day since July 2002. Shares of T-Mobile dropped 13.27% while AT&T fell 9.81%, each notching their own worst days since 2013 and 2000, respectively.
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.