Elon Musk Declares Delta CEO “Will Lose His Job” After Starlink Snub

Aviation watchdog JonNYC passed along comments reporting remarks that were shared with him by Delta CEO Ed Bastian where Bastian explained rejecting Starlink wifi because of Elon Musk “We do not want to be with Elon Musk. Trust me.” and “[A]t a different, earlier event, Ed also said that [Delta] did test with starlink, but did not want to partner with Elon. “If you know his reputation, it’s all true what they say about him.” In fact, Delta chose Amazon’s competitor Leo – which is not yet even in beta, so airlines like United and Southwest will have their fleets fully equipped with truly fast internet before Delta even starts – because Amazon offers a better financial deal (packaging wifi with Amazon Studios content and cloud services) and because Delta can put access behind its branded portal, which Starlink reportedly rejected. However, Musk himself did not take kindly to reports of Bastian’s remarks: He will lose his job over this — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2026 That wasn’t the end of it, either, with Musk offering this banger: Best way to sandbox an AI is to put it on a Delta flight – it will have no chance of accessing the Internet! — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2026 Comments that Bastian would “lose his job” have the internet speculating that Musk would buy Delta in order to fire him. Delta has a market cap of about $56 billion. He purchased Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion. As of this writing he has a personal net worth of about $920 billion. While Omar Little certainly said in The Wire, “You come at the king, you best not miss” I take Musk’s point differently: the decision to commit to an unproven and not yet available technology while other airlines deliver a better experience to customers today is exactly the kind of decision that ends up costing a CEO their job. Bastian has made a huge bet on Amazon Leo which is not yet even in beta. He’s given competitors a couple of years head start with a better inflight experience. And so far Delta has only announced rollout of Amazon’s technology, later, for about half its fleet. The choice not to offer Starlink, when virtually all competitors will, could be a sufficiently collossal blunder to give up Delta’s ‘premium’ position, that earns a margin premium, to United. Southwest, American, Alaska and even Frontier have committed to Starlink as well. Not everyone makes their purchase decisions – and, ultimately, their cobrand credit card spend decisions – on the basis of inflight internet but for those who value connectivity and productivity while traveling the gap between everyone else and Delta will be significant for a period of time. If Delta gives up its market lead, that’s exactly the kind of thing that can cost a CEO their job. Topics on this page