Elliott Investment Management has built a stake in Deutsche Telekom and is pushing the company to scrap its planned merger with T-Mobile US, Bloomberg reported. The news sent T-Mobile US (TMUS) stock up 2.82% to close at $187.30 on Wednesday, while Deutsche Telekom (DTEGY) opened 1.5% higher in Frankfurt on Thursday, topping Germany's blue-chip index.

Elliott wants Deutsche Telekom to walk away from a potential full combination with T-Mobile US and instead return more cash to investors through larger share buybacks. Deutsche Telekom has already committed to buying back up to €5 billion ($5.8 billion), roughly 4% of its stock, this year.

The move fits a pattern for Elliott, which has a long track record of telecom activism. The fund previously targeted AT&T in 2019, pressing for asset sales and buybacks, and in 2020 pushed SoftBank over its management of Sprint before its sale to T-Mobile US.

Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Hoettges has been pushing for a full merger with T-Mobile US since at least April 2026. The German carrier holds roughly a 53% stake in the U.S. wireless operator, a position it built up after T-Mobile US completed its acquisition of Sprint in 2020. A full merger would have created the world's largest wireless operator by market value.

The deal was already showing cracks before Elliott's move. A Semafor report in late July said T-Mobile US executives had told Deutsche Telekom they no longer supported the roughly $300 billion merger, citing shareholder concerns and regulatory risk. U.S. regulators were widely expected to require that T-Mobile revenue stay invested domestically as a condition of approval, which would have complicated the deal's rationale.

Elliott Targets the Merger Overhang

J.P. Morgan analyst Akhil Dattani said the speculation around activist involvement alone was enough to move the stock. He described Deutsche Telekom as "extremely cheap" relative to its double-digit earnings-per-share growth, weighed down by what he called "a unique cocktail of strategic overhangs."

"Activism could force DT to address this debate, either through admitting their merger interest and in turn outlining the deal logic, or by formally ruling out a transaction," Dattani said. He rates the stock "overweight."

Dattani said increasing the buyback programme would be financially helpful but would not by itself clear the strategic uncertainty hanging over the stock.

What a Full Re-Rating Would Take

A full re-rating of Deutsche Telekom would likely require the company to either walk away from the T-Mobile deal entirely or justify it clearly to investors, according to Dattani. It would also need to address a separate set of U.S.-related concerns, including satellite competition — where providers such as SpaceX's Starlink have moved into direct-to-cell partnerships with U.S. carriers — wireless market dynamics, a perceived weak fibre footprint, and a heavy slate of upcoming spectrum auctions.

Deutsche Telekom's stock has fallen roughly 9% in Frankfurt over the past 12 months, giving the company a market value of around €138 billion ($160 billion).

Elliott's exact stake size has not been disclosed. Under German securities rules, investors must disclose a position once it reaches or exceeds 3% of a company's stock. A regulatory filing could therefore be the first public confirmation of how large Elliott's holding actually is — and, beyond that, the next formal test of whether Deutsche Telekom's leadership engages with the activist's demands or defends its merger ambition.