Reddit Is Still Furious About AT&T’s $47 Billion Loss From Six Years Ago

Still one of the biggest names in telecom, AT&T (NYSE:T | T Price Prediction) trades at $27.98 as of Monday early afternoon, up 12% year-to-date but down 1.8% over the past week. Retail sentiment on Reddit has slid from a monthly average of 30.4 to a weekly average of 24.7, keeping AT&T in bearish territory. The conversation isn’t about fiber or wireless. It’s about a $47 billion mistake Reddit won’t let management forget.

The Ellison Deal Reopens AT&T’s Worst Trade

One post is driving nearly all of AT&T’s social activity this week. On r/wallstreetbets, user osiris_rai published “AT&T Lost $47B on This Exact Bundle—Now the Ellisons Are Buying It Back for $111B. Bold Move or Billionaire Ego Trip?” It drew 1,647 upvotes with a 97% upvote ratio and 267 comments.

“AT&T acquired the bundle for $108.7 billion in 2018 and exited for roughly $43 billion in 2022, booking a $47 billion loss in the process. The Ellison family is now paying $111 billion for those same assets, backed by $57.5 billion in debt from Bank of America, Citigroup, and Apollo. Bold move or billionaire ego trip?”

AT&T Lost $47B on This Exact Bundle—Now the Ellisons Are Buying It Back for $111B. Bold Move or Billionaire Ego Trip?
by u/osiris_rai in wallstreetbets

• AT&T’s history of acquiring media assets at peak prices makes its current $23 billion EchoStar spectrum purchase harder to evaluate with confidence
• Operating income fell 7.25% year-over-year to $6.1 billion in Q3 2025, even as headline net income surged on the one-time DIRECTV gain
• The pending Lumen acquisition will push net debt to adjusted EBITDA to approximately 3.0x before deleveraging begins

What the Actual Segment Data Shows

As far as AT&T results go, consumer fiber broadband revenue grew 16.8% year-over-year to $2.2 billion in Q3 2025, and AT&T ended 2025 with over one million fiber net adds for the eighth consecutive year. The convergence rate for customers subscribing to both fiber and wireless climbed 200 basis points year-over-year to 42% in Q4 2025.

Starting with Q1 2026 results, AT&T restructures into two segments: Advanced Connectivity (domestic 5G and fiber) and Legacy (covering copper-based services). Advanced Connectivity represented roughly 90% of revenues and over 95% of adjusted EBITDA in 2025, growing EBITDA at more than 3% annually. 

The consensus price target sits at $29.41, though Wells Fargo recently trimmed its target from $29 to $27. The stock trades at roughly 9x trailing earnings with a 4% dividend yield, and if the Advanced Connectivity numbers print cleanly and the Lumen integration stays on track, AT&T gets a chance to reframe the conversation away from its media-era missteps.