SpaceX's complaints to the Federal Communications Commission have helped the satellite company land a $17 billion deal to buy spectrum licenses from EchoStar.

The deal consists of up to $8.5 billion in cash and up to $8.5 billion in SpaceX stock, EchoStar said. SpaceX also agreed to pay $2 billion worth of interest payments on EchoStar debt through November 2027.

After SpaceX alleged that EchoStar subsidiary Dish Network "barely uses" its spectrum and urged the FCC to make the spectrum available to other carriers, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced an investigation into EchoStar and threatened to revoke its spectrum licenses. EchoStar countered that it had met the network construction deadlines associated with its spectrum licenses, but decided to start selling off the licenses inst

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