Jul 7, 2025 - Business

AT&T completes $7.6 billion sale of DirecTV

Dan Primack

A golden TV sitting on top of a column — Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Private equity firm TPG completed its $7.6 billion purchase of the 70% stake it didn't already hold in DirecTV from AT&T.

Why it matters: AT&T is officially out of the media game, focused instead on connectivity.

Catch up quick: TPG agreed to the deal last fall, concurrent to an announcement that DirecTV would buy Dish Network to form the country's largest pay-TV provider.

But TPG's deal wasn't contingent on the Dish deal, which soon collapsed due to a failed debt swap.

The bottom line: AT&T in 2015 spent $49 billion to buy DirecTV and three years later spent $85 billion for Time Warner. It no longer owns any of it.

As Axios noted back in 2021, buying a media company in the name of vertical synergies rarely ends well.

Add Axios on Google

AT&T completes $7.6 billion sale of DirecTV

What to read next