gcc warns about unused static functions, but not static inline: is there a practical distinction?

My version (5.4) of gcc warns about unused static functions, even in a header file when -Wall is used. It doesn't complain if the same functions are defined static inline or simply inline.

For example, the following function in a file unused.h:

static void foo() {}

... when included in a test.cpp file as follows:

#include "unused.h"

Generates the following compiler diagnostic when compiler with -Wall:

In file included from test.cpp:11:0:
unused.h: At global scope:
unused.h:9:13: warning: ‘void foo()’ defined but not used [-Wunused-function]
 static void foo() {}
             ^

It is common practice, as far as I know, to include headers with many utility functions, only a handful of which might be used in any given source file. This behavior means that I get warnings for any functions I don't use which are declared only static.

As a practical matter I can simply change these to static inline to get rid of the warning (or turn off the specific warning entirely, but I do find it useful from time to time), but it seems that large utility functions which won't benefit from inlining¹ are more logically declared static².

As far as I know unused static functions (just like static inline) are simply dropped by gcc when the translation unit is compiled, so they pose no binary size or link-time overhead at all.

Am I missing something here? Is there a good reason that unused static functions are more problematic than static inline?

¹ Yes, I'm aware it's a hint only but gcc actually takes the hint in many cases.

² Or perhaps better, only declared in the header file and defined somewhere else in a .cpp file - but that inhibits header-only use which is sometimes convenient.