We consider mu-term hybrid inflation which, in its minimal format with gravity mediated supersymmetry breaking, leads to split supersymmetry. The MSSM eta-term in this framework is larger than the gravitino mass mG, and successful inflation requires mG(and hence also |mu|) greater than or similar to 5 x 10(7) GeV, such that the gravitino decays before the LSP neutralino freezes out. Assuming universal scalar masses of the same order as mG, this leads to split supersymmetry. The LSP wino with mass similar or equal to 2 TeV is a plausible dark matter candidate, the gluino may be accessible at the LHC, and the MSSM parameter tan beta similar or equal to 1.7 in order to be compatible with the measured Higgs boson mass. The tensor-to-scalar ratio r, a canonical measure of gravity waves, can be as high as 0.001. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.