Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, has just threatened to use some of his vast fortune to buy Europe’s largest low-cost airline, Ryanair, after becoming embroiled in a spat with the carrier’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary.
The feud began after Ryanair ruled out installing Musk’s Starlink satellite Wi-Fi service on its planes, prompting Musk to take issue with some of O’Leary’s reasoning behind the decision.
Ryanair boss calls Elon Musk an ‘idiot’
A couple of days after Ryanair ruled out installing the Starlink Wi-Fi system on its planes, O’Leary was interviewed by an Irish radio station, and the often outspoken airline boss did not hold back on sharing his opinion about Starlink’s founder, Elon Musk.
“I would pay no attention whatsoever to Elon Musk; he’s an idiot. Very wealthy, but still an idiot,” he said.
O’Leary was responding to Musk calling him “misinformed” about Starlink. In ruling out Starlink, O’Leary explained that installing the Starlink antenna on top of its aircraft would lead to a 2% fuel penalty due to the weight and drag of the antenna.
Musk and Starlink’s vice president of engineering, Michael Niccolls, fired back, claiming that the company’s antennas are significantly slimmer than legacy systems, resulting in additional fuel burn of just 0.3% on a Boeing 737-800.
“What Elon Musk knows about flight and drag is zero,” O’Leary claimed. “We have to put a radio antenna on top of the aircraft. It would cost us about $200 to $250 million a year, in other words, about an extra dollar for every passenger we fly.”
“The reality for us is we can’t afford those costs. Passengers won’t pay for internet usage. If it’s free, they’ll use it. But they won’t pay €1 each to use the internet.”
“I wouldn’t pay any attention to what Elon Musk puts on that cesspit of his called X. He was the guy who advocated for getting Donald Trump elected.”
Elon Musk threatens to buy Ryanair so he can fire Michael O’Leary
Elon Musk isn’t sitting this one out, and when a snippet of O’Leary’s radio interview was shared on X, the SpaceX and Tesla founder couldn’t help but respond, saying, “Ryanair CEO is an utter idiot. Fire him.”
Despite O’Leary’s rather im view of X, his airline has made a name for itself trolling passengers on the platform with cutting replies. His social media team is infamous for the tongue-in-cheek memes they share on X, and they couldn’t help resist calling out the platform when there was a service outage on Friday.
“Perhaps you need Wi-Fi, Elon Musk,” the airline said above a link to a story about the X service outage.
“Should I buy Ryan Air and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?”
O’Leary made Ryanair into one of the most successful low-cost airlines in the world
When O’Leary took the helm at Ryanair, the carrier was a struggling regional operator. In 1994, O’Leary became Ryanair’s chief executive and embarked on a mission to transform the airline into the low-cost behemoth that it is today.
O’Leary says he was inspired by the business model of Southwest Airlines, but Ryanair went much further than Southwest’s founder Herb Kelleher ever dared.
Ryanair adopted an ultra-low-cost model with an aggressive obsession with controlling costs. O’Leary was able to lure passengers with rock-bottom prices, but these bargain deals came at a price… rude service and nickel and dime attitude that left passengers vowing never to travel with the airline again.
Several years ago, however, Ryanair decided it was in its business interest to start being slightly nicer to passengers, although its strategy is still cemented in offering the lowest possible baseline price.
That means offering a completely no-frills service, of which in-flight Wi-Fi has never even been considered.
Starlink says O’Leary is wrong about Starlink
For O’Leary, Starlink in-flight Wi-Fi is a non-starter. Whichever way you slice it, adding Wi-Fi would increase the airline’s costs, and O’Leary doesn’t think he would be able to charge passengers more to cover these additional costs.
What has irked Musk, though, is O’Leary’s assertion that Starlink would increase the weight and drag on its planes by as much as Ryanair claims.
“He is being misinformed,” Musk slammed in another post on X. “I doubt they can even measure the difference in fuel use accurately, especially for a one-hour flight, where the incremental drag is basically zero during the ascent phase due to high angle of attack.”
Musk’s Grok AI chatbot says he can’t actually buy Ryanair
Elon Musk’s very own Grok AI chatbot has come out to say that his threat to buy Ryanair wouldn’t be possible, as European laws require airlines based in the bloc to be 50% controlled by EU nationals or entities.
As a result, Musk would not be able to acquire a controlling stake in Ryanair.
Not that O’Leary would be left empty-handed if Musk were to acquire Ryanair. O’Leary is already a billionaire from his successful leadership of Ryanair and holds a 4% stake in the airline. If Musk were to buy Ryanair and a 50% markup, O’Leary’s wealth would be significantly increased.
