T-Mobile’s connection to Grapevine-based Patriot Mobile sparks a backlash

T-Mobile US Inc. is coming under scrutiny for its business relationship with a small wireless carrier that’s helped fund a conservative takeover of several North Texas school boards. More than 1,200 people have signed an online petition asking the mobile-phone giant to cut ties with Patriot Mobile, a Grapevine-based company that calls itself “America’s only Christian conservative wireless provider.” Patriot Mobile founded a political action committee this year that backed 11 winning candidates for school boards in the Dallas suburbs, many of whom sought to ban books as part of efforts to fight what they see as “woke” education policies. That’s in sharp contrast to T-Mobile’s public image as a left-of-center company, driven by its pledges to pay for employees to travel for abortions, promote diversity and protect the environment.

So now its customers are left to wonder why it’s renting space on its networks to Patriot Mobile, a carrier that advertises a much different political bent. The situation highlights the risk to companies when they take positions on hot-button cultural issues, as well as the expectations consumers have for those firms to maintain consistent political messaging. In March, some Walt Disney employees protested Chief Executive Officer Bob Chapek’s attempt to stay neutral on Florida legislation that limited classroom discussions of homosexuality. And Dallas-based AT&T has been criticized for donations to conservative lawmakers and its ties to the far-right One America News network. Now, T-Mobile is in the crossfire, too. “It makes for an odd match: Patriot, a far-right activist group using the network of the wokest carrier,” said Roger Entner, a wireless industry consultant at Recon Analytics. Bellevue, Wash.-based T-Mobile, which also has a campus in Frisco, says it has no influence over Patriot’s operations and simply rents excess capacity on its networks to the smaller company. A spokesperson declined to comment on Patriot Mobile’s politics, other than to note they don’t represent T-Mobile or its 89 million service subscribers. Patriot Mobile, which has fewer than 100,000 customers according to Entner’s estimate, says its mission is to “passionately defend our God-given, constitutional rights and freedoms, and to glorify God always.” It donates a portion of proceeds to support religious freedom, the right to bear arms, the sanctity of life and freedom of speech. This year, Patriot Mobile executives created a political action committee and funded it with about $650,000 in cash and in-kind contributions, according to filings with the Texas Ethics Commission. CEO Glenn Story, who founded Patriot Mobile in 2013, says that the PAC received less than 25% of the company’s total donations to conservative causes, which also go to Turning Point USA and Concerned Women for America. Executives at the company decided they wanted to direct attention to education amid reports of liberals trying to influence curriculum and classroom materials that seemed inappropriate for children, Story said.