Tim Höttges, the 63-year-old chief executive of Deutsche Telekom, is pursuing the most ambitious deal of his career: merging the German telecom giant with its U.S. offshoot, T-Mobile US, into a combined company valued at roughly $300 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
Deutsche Telekom already owns a 54% stake in T-Mobile, which analysts say is constrained on large deals by its high leverage and its inability to issue stock without diluting the parent’s stake. By folding the two together, the combined entity would likely access debt at lower cost and gain the financial flexibility to pursue T-Mobile’s strategy of buying fiber-internet operators in the U.S. to compete with AT&T and Verizon on bundled wireless and home-internet services.
Höttges, who has run Deutsche Telekom for 12 years, spent much of that tenure reshaping the American asset from a struggling operation into the world’s most valuable telecom brand by market capitalization. In 2011, as a senior executive, he worked with then-CEO René Obermann on an attempt to sell T-Mobile to AT&T, a deal blocked by the Justice Department. The pair used the breakup fee — including spectrum and about $3 billion in cash — to upgrade T-Mobile’s network.
“He picked the right horse. Then he gave the horse enough fodder for it to run fast,” said Roger Entner, founder of telecom research firm Recon Analytics, whose clients include T-Mobile.
Höttges has called T-Mobile’s 2020 acquisition of Sprint his greatest achievement. He negotiated the $59 billion deal directly with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, a famously tough negotiator, as talks repeatedly broke down.
To complete the merger now, Höttges must navigate a complex set of stakeholders and regulators. T-Mobile minority shareholders, who currently own the stake Deutsche Telekom does not, see limited upside in being exposed to lower-margin foreign businesses. The German state, which holds 28% of Deutsche Telekom, would also need to approve the deal. Regulatory approval would require national-security review by both the U.S. and German governments.
Höttges has at times had to balance the political demands of both countries. Last year, T-Mobile ended some diversity, equity and inclusion policies, aligning with a wave of U.S. companies doing so under the Trump administration. Höttges received thousands of emails from angry German shareholders about the move, said people familiar with the matter.
A Deutsche Telekom spokesman said the company continues to “live our culture of diversity in the U.S., as we do everywhere, and ensure that no one is discriminated against at work,” adding that “at the same time, we respect the political framework in the U.S.”
Another point of tension emerged from a T-Mobile donation to the White House’s new ballroom. Some members of Deutsche Telekom’s supervisory board became concerned the roughly $4 million gift could expose the parent company to allegations of illegally bribing a foreign government, said people familiar with the matter. Höttges told the board in December that T-Mobile had donated to the Trust for the National Mall believing the money would be used for America’s 250th anniversary celebrations, not a ballroom, according to people who attended the meeting. A T-Mobile spokesperson said in October the company donated to the Trust, which helps “restore and enrich the historic landmarks that define our nation’s capital, such as the White House ballroom,” and that “T-Mobile has no role in the use of those funds.”
Höttges is known for his dialectical approach to decision-making. Obermann recalled that for every idea, Höttges insisted on considering the antithesis. “If nobody contradicts him, he himself becomes his own dialectical force,” Obermann said. The two bought neighboring land in Bonn years before Höttges became CFO and often discussed business past midnight before jogging together the next morning.
Höttges plans to retire at the end of 2028 and wants a successor found first, said people familiar with the matter. On the German podcast “OMR” in February, he said his successor will need a different skill set. “Back then, a sober numbers guy was the right choice,” he said. “Today, I believe we need a visionary who understands the future architecture of modern infrastructure.”
He has described telecom as a “scheißindustrie” — a crappy industry — on the same podcast, citing constant price pressure and regulatory intervention. Deutsche Telekom operates in 50 countries with 273 million mobile customers.
Höttges has invested billions in T-Mobile’s U.S. infrastructure for fixed-wireless home internet and in Germany, where fiber-internet subscribers have nearly tripled since 2023. He champions European tech sovereignty, opening Germany’s first AI gigafactory in February — a data center that uses chips from Nvidia, an American company.