Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Hottges speaks during Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest mobile fair, in Barcelona on March 3, 2025.
Lluis Gene | Afp | Getty Images
BARCELONA — Europe needs its own version of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges said Monday as he made an impassioned plea for the region to cut red tape on the telecommunications industry.
Europe is falling behind peers such as the U.S. and China when it comes to key technological innovations such as artificial intelligence and next-generation 5G networks, Höttges said during a panel event at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona.
“What Europe needs is a DOGE,” Höttges told the audience, speaking alongside Vodafone’s Margherita Della Valle, Orange’s Christel Heydemann and Telefonica’s Marc Murtra.
“We need an initiative to cut down this bureaucracy and this administration here, because there are tens of thousands of people sitting there and administrating our industries,” he added.
The Trump administration only announced plans to launch DOGE last year. The initiative, which is led by billionaire Tesla boss Elon Musk, was tasked with slashing federal government administration costs.
DOGE isn’t actually a government agency — and its leader Musk is not an elected official. Since its establishment, DOGE has looked to slash spending at federal government agencies, making huge job cuts at departments for defense, education and energy.
Höttges said that he’s counted all of the regulators Deutsche Telekom deals with — including watchdogs for media, cybersecurity and privacy — and that overall number came to around 270.
He added that, unlike other European telcos, Deutsche Telekom is able to source most of its revenues from the U.S. via its majority stake in American wireless network T-Mobile.
Renewed cry for consolidation
As telecom firms have frequently done in previous iterations of MWC, Höttges made a renewed call for Europe to cut down on barriers to market consolidation in the industry.
“There is no reason that every market has to operate with three or four operators,” he said. “We should build a European single market.”
Still, analysts don’t see industry consolidation as a “silver bullet” for the sector. PwC’s Global Telecommunications Lead Florian Gröne said that while EU regulation has led to “fragmentation” in the region he’s not certain that he agrees with “industry mantra that you need cross border consolidation and everything’s going to be fine.”
“A vertically integrated telco model has its purpose, but it’s not the right lens to drive outcomes both from an enterprise perspective and a regulatory, more societal perspective,” Gröne told CNBC on a call last week ahead of MWC.
Höttges added that Europe should seriously consider charging U.S. tech giants such as Amazon, Microsoft and Netflix a fee for usage of mobile carriers’ networks, an initiative that has been proposed multiple times in the past.
“It’s a free service we are offering, because there are no interconnections whatsoever. And I think even they should contribute a little bit to lead to the investment needs of our industry is well,” Höttges said.