Delta CEO Ed Bastian reportedly told employees he doesn't want to partner with Elon Musk on Starlink, calling out his reputation directly.
Blasting a CEO that has corporate contracts in SEA, RNO, LAX, AUS & that MFE gate squatting route from AUS is BOLD.
took me a second to figure out what you were saying...
but interesting take that it's pretty stupid for Delta to be P*ssing off one of the largest employers in AUS.
You aren't wrong. Maybe that's another reason...
Elon didn't want to exclusively market with Delta so Ed got mad and couldn't believe Starlink wouldn't want brand affiliation with.... Delta. 😉
I have nothing to back that up, but it honestly wouldn't surprise me, at all
There's nothing wrong with a mere hunch, aka, a 'hot-take', MaxPower. In fact, the spicier, the better! I think you got what Roberto was saying, after all!
It only takes CEOs a matter of minutes/tweets before they go back to sucking up to (insert your personage).
It’s all true? Both the good and the bad? Or just the bad, in which case it’s not all.
Forgive me, but what's the good? I have not heard a single good thing about that man, at least once you get past the "he created so many compnaies!" bs.
Where have you been? Elon has done Nazi salutes, literally tried to pay people to vote to swing elections and then there is his data vacuuming masked as DOGE.
And I've heard things about Bastian, like how he's quietly a homophobe and he couldn't stand Hauenstein and forced him into the background. So neither side is Simon Pure.
Starlink is basically chick fil a but for satellite internet
What do you mean by that, it's obnoxiously Christian, forces pickles on you, and doesn't work on Sundays?
If your idea of "management crazy" [sic] is booking more than a billion dollars net profit for the last two quarters, then I'd love to find a couple of those lunatics to run our family office.
Ed has no principles and he teaches his employees to be the same way, better to spread his evil. He also has no sense of smell, because his nose is jammed up Guillaume Faury's sphincter.
>I certainly have my opinions about Musk… I’ll leave it at that.
No, we'd actually like to hear. What about him do you specifically take issue with? A statement, a quote, a position he takes you don't agree with?
Or is it more of a 'I have to say this because the people we flew to Japan with' type deal?
I think it's the latter. You just want to be popular. That's okay.
Woah, that is a hot-take, 1991Girl!
Maybe, I’ve been too politically-correct. Perhaps, we do need to hear directly from more CEOs (real ones, like centi-millionaires and Fortune 500 and up, not made-up ones, like your cousin on LinkedIn). Like, why hasn’t Ed shared his bedtime skin-care routine with us via TikTok yet? Think of all the sponsored content opportunities!
Ugh, yet another example of the sad era of ‘Celebrity CEO’ that we apparently live in. Ed, Elon, Scott, can ya just run your companies, operate reliably, and maybe try to make life better for customers, workers and shareholders, alike? Nope. Gotta sling catty comments at each other, while nearly everyone else suffers. Pathetic.
AS, HA, UA, and WN will all have their fleets retrofitted with Starlink by the time DL starts installing Amazon LEO. And AA will have a good chunk of its Airbus planes converted to Starlink by then as well.
"United has 600+ planes with Starlink (~36% of the fleet)"
600 planes is over 52% of their fleet. John doesn't understand basic math but is a NYT bestseller?
It's on 608 UA/UAX (1,143+347=1,490) two-class aircraft so 41% or 38% of all UA/UAX aircraft. 1,000 aircraft by the end of the year, all the wide bodies before next summer and the whole fleet by the end of next year.
Ed, we're waiting for you to announce the return of domestic D1 to SEA.
Julie gets it. This whole charade is probably just to distract from Alaska's epic announcements today. Ed over there like 'but, but... don't forget about Delta...' (So, where do you think they'll pull the 75S from? SNA?)
“If you know his reputation, it’s all true what they say about him.”
What do they say about him? Who’s they?
Ed - gotta say, this is a head-scratcher.
Ed may be making a smart long term call here. Elon is so unstable, and It’s my guess that Ed doesn’t want to stake his brands “premium” reputation on someone like him over the long term.
Many people are not aware that all data transmitted via starlink is 100% viewable by starlink. You can not get around it. VPNs, and similar (like icloud relay) are not permitted when you use starlink at home or in the air. I am forced to subscribe to starlink as it’s the only viable option at one of my offices… and every time I do I know I have absolutely no privacy. The fine print is awful on that service. The difference between Starlink and most other internet provides is with Elon is it’s not a matter of if he uses your data against you, but when… especially if he deems it in his favor to do so.
Now imagine having contracts with corporations and not being able to provide their employees any type of data privacy while on your plane…
Or imagine when Elon decides to praise some awful historical fascist… do you want your brand tied via hardwired infrastructure to that s*it show ?
And for the record, I am no fan of delta here. But I do find this break away from corp group think a bit refreshing.
I'd like to correct some of your misunderstanding.
Every ISP can see some of the data of the packets they transport. Primarily source/destination info so they know where to route the data. The payload of those packets is encrypted, and they can't see into that.
You absolutely can use VPN's over Starlink. I've used them on Starlink ground terminals and in the air without issue. They are not blocked (even on Qatar!). iCloud private relay is a separate issue, and that's not specific to Starlink. And there are configuration workarounds for it.
Ok, Dave’s very tactful response is correct and I stand corrected on the VPN issue. I still don’t think it’s safe to trust musk with any of your data (and let’s be honest, most people don’t use vpns 100% of the time), and I completely understand why a major corp wouldn’t want to heavily tie themselves up with him…
To be clear again, Musk doesn't have any of your data. If they wanted to, they could log the websites you are going to, but not what you are doing there. The payloads of all of your interactions with other websites are encrypted. All VPN's do is obscure the source/destination addresses of your traffic from the ISP you are using, which is helpful when you have an ISP blocking things (think China or other authoritarian regimes). There are also big questions on what the VPN providers do with that info as well, so be careful there. Source: I've been working in IT enterprise network engineering and security architecture for the past 30 years.
Another commenter already pointed out your point about VPNs is incorrect. I'd just like to add that the issue that may be causing your confusion is CGNAT (Carrier Grade Network Address Translation) which although not Starlink specific is less often used by older terrestrial ISPs that have not hit the limit on their IPv4 address range allocations. But hey - why not jump on that lefty "when in doubt blame Elon" bandwagon. The Elon hate here is astonishing but I guess that says more for Ben's constituency which is obviously left leaning. Common sense in short supply in certain quarters it seems ...
that so many people continue to enrich this fascist boggles my mind.
The "RIP Delta" tweet because of wifi is absurd. I work in travel, I constantly talk about travel, and surround myself with people who are also very involved with traveling and the travel industry. I can hardly think of a time where someone I know booked a flight because of the wifi. I truly cannot think of a time - for myself or my clients - where an airline was picked because they had better wifi over the competition (strictly talking about commercial flights). I fly DL very frequently and find their wifi to be perfectly serviceable and rarely have issues.
True. I saw an interview with Maye Musk, his mother, and she’s as vile.
I don’t know anyone who chooses an airline simply because of their WiFi.. or wine selection.
Her son is supporting right-wing groups and bankrolling them. In the UK he showed his support for Christopher Yaxley Lennon/Tommy Robinson, who wants immigrants deported. But Elon is white l, so he doesn’t consider himself one lol.
Had a guy watching four NFL games on an iPad split screen on a Starlink flight Sunday. NPS (Net Promoter Scores) double, logging on is instantaneous, there is zero lag and it never glitches. You have to see it to appreciate what a game changer it is or all the things you can and will do with it once you understand how capable and dependable it is.
Until Musk has a drug low and decides to start charging an airline $1 million a day per plane to use his product that others’ hands built.
Accept a “gift” from that guy at your own risk.
Gift? I bet the largest airline in the world has a long-term contract with very favorable terms especially since they were an early customer, but the hysterics are entertaining.
I'm more interested in learning about how JonNYC gets so many scoops and about why Tim Dunn is so fixated with Delta. It'd be cool if you could interview them to get more details, while letting them keep their anonymity.
I much prefer Starlink but wouldn’t necessarily pick my airline over it. That said, I think Ed is focusing too much on being cool and trendy and thinking he’s the market leader vs trying to make Delta a better company or investing in the product. He seems like a fat cat and I’m glad United is hungry and American slowly seems to be getting better.
Looks like Elon replied to Gary’s post on this…“He will lose his job over this” (referring to Ed)
https://www.reddit.com/r/delta/s/MfjIW4Q7n0
As Ken Watanabe said: “Let. Them. FIGHT!”