Elon Musk duels with Delta CEO over in-flight Wi-Fi. United sees an opening.

It started with a rumor — hearsay about what Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian had to say about Elon Musk and Delta’s decision not to sign on to Musk’s high-speed Starlink service for in-flight Wi-Fi.

It quickly snowballed into a duel with Delta sparked by the world’s richest man.

Now, United Airlines is trying to take advantage of the war of words by offering an elite status match to Delta customers who want to try Starlink Wi-Fi, which has become an industry standard as more airlines sign on.

The tiff began with a Tuesday social media post on Musk’s social media platform X by popular aviation insider JonNYC. He cautioned that he did not know if the quotes were accurate, but that he was sent a message saying Bastian commented on the airline’s decision to not go with Starlink: “We do not want to be with Elon Musk. Trust me.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has not verified the purported comments.

SpaceX’s Starlink has more than 11,000 satellites in space, affording it the ability to offer the fastest in-flight Wi-Fi in the industry.

Many airlines around the world, including Delta rivals United, American and Alaska, have signed up for Starlink. Delta currently has free in-flight Wi-Fi through Viasat and Hughes satellite companies.

But eventually that will change. Delta has partnered with Amazon for high-speed Amazon Leo satellite-based in-flight connectivity — starting in 2028. The airline plans to have a “multipartner ecosystem” for in-flight connectivity.

But in the race for the fastest in-flight internet, Delta’s move has left it for now with slower Wi-Fi than its rivals. And Amazon currently does not have the satellite fleet that Starlink does.

Bastian said Delta had tested with Starlink, but, “If you know his reputation, it’s all true what they say about him,” he purportedly said at a different event, according to the unverified comments posted by JonNYC. The AJC has not confirmed those comments.

In response to an aviation blog post about Bastian’s unverified comments, Musk responded on X, the social media platform he owns: “He will lose his job over this.”

A few hours later Musk posted: “Best way to sandbox an AI is to put it on a Delta flight — it will have no chance of accessing the internet!”

The spat prompted comments from frequent flyers on social media, many in favor of Starlink and the airlines that offer it, and some others in opposition to Musk or supportive of Delta.

In a written statement Thursday, Delta said it “leads the industry in Wi-Fi.”

It said it has nearly 1,300 Wi-Fi equipped planes, making for “more fast, free Wi-Fi than any other airline in the world.”

“No one else is anywhere close to that kind of a number and certainly hasn’t been there for as long a period of time that we have,” Ranjan Goswami, Delta’s chief marketing and product officer, said back in March when announcing the Amazon Leo service.

Goswami said during a June investor presentation that having Amazon Leo will mean “when you go on a trip to Rome, on your flight back, you can upload every photo, do all the things you want to — all the stuff that you always want to get to and never quite get to it because life takes over.”

“And when we think about things and use cases like shopping or content or gaming … these are all places where Amazon plays in a really big way.”

In its statement Thursday, Delta also said its vision “is about more than a wireless signal, and we remain fully focused on our customers’ experience and investing for the future.”

Amazon Leo will bring high-bandwidth connectivity along with opportunities “to bring their broad ecosystem of entertainment and digital services to the skies,” according to Delta.

It’s not the first time Musk has criticized Delta for not buying his Starlink service. For example, Musk earlier this week posted “Delta will lose a lot of customers.” And in response to a post in August about Delta customers saying they were booking flights with other airlines for Starlink, he wrote: “I warned them. It will get much worse.”

The verbal altercation remained mostly contained in the realm of social media for a couple of days this week.

Then United Airlines entered the chat.

In response to a post apparently in favor of Starlink saying United “appears to be offering a status match of sorts to @Delta flyers impacted by the CEO’s ignorance,” United responded: “The rumors are true” with a link to a status match challenge application.

It says those who already have status with another airline can apply, take a United flight within a certain time frame and then get United elite status for 120 days.

Then on Thursday, United launched another status match challenge targeted specifically at Delta and American flyers saying: “Don’t keep buffering: switch to United and get the fastest Wi-Fi in the sky.”

American Airlines announced plans to install Starlink but won’t start the installations until next year. United started installing Starlink last year and said it plans to outfit its entire widebody fleet by next summer.