Elon Musk scorns Delta CEO Ed Bastian for not signing with Starlink for in-flight Wi-Fi: ‘He will lose his job over this’

The failed deal was one thing; Bastian, after much consideration, signed with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) to roll out the e-commerce giant’s new Leo satellite internet across Delta’s fleet, bucking the trend in an industry where most major players have equipped their aircraft with Starlink, the Wall Street Journal reports.

But it’s the comments allegedly made behind closed doors in recent days that have fanned the months-old flames.

Bastian rebuffs SpaceX’s Starlink — partially because of its founder

While it may seem to some like Musk is being a bit of a sore loser rather than accepting the reality that business is business, the situation became personal when rumours broke that Bastian had spoken poorly of the SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) founder during some of the carrier’s internal meetings about the potential partnership.

“We do not want to be with Elon Musk. Trust me. If you know his reputation, it’s all true what they say about him,” the Delta head reportedly remarked.

In response, Musk not only predicted Bastian being removed from his role, but also joked that putting AI on a Delta flight could serve as a potential guardrail for the tech, as “It will have no chance of accessing the Internet!”

Other key reasons Delta declined Starlink tech was because of the cost, and also because execs supposedly wanted to be able to continue to connect users through the airline’s proprietary Delta Sync portal, which Musk called “painful, difficult and expensive for their customers.”

Feelings about the Musk aside, customers seem to agree that Starlink is superior

All quips aside, complaints about Delta’s in-flight Wi-Fi — which isn’t due to be upgraded to Amazon Leo until 2028 — abound online. A few disgruntled customers have explicitly implored the company to upgrade to Starlink in the past.