Elon Musk has repeated his threat to buy Europe’s largest low-cost airline, Ryanair, as a spat over the airline’s refusal to buy his Starlink in-flight Wi-Fi service drags on.
At this point, it very much seems like Ryanair’s ruthless social media is goading Musk on his own social media platform, X, and he can’t help but get involved. But who will have the final word?
Elon Musk repeats threat to buy Ryanair
On Monday, Elon Musk once again repeated his threat to acquire Ryanair, an airline that currently has a market cap of around $30 billion, which would cost the world’s richest man around 4% of his net worth to buy.
Not that Musk has been on the hunt for an airline investment. No, instead, Musk says the only reason he wants to buy the Irish airline is so that he can put someone called ‘Ryan’ in charge of Ryanair.
The latest threat came in response to Ryanair’s infamous social media team goading Musk on his own social media platform, X, after it made a public repost of the question: “What is a propaganda you’re not falling for ??”
Ryanair’s three-word response: “Wi-Fi on planes” was enough to rile Musk into a public response several hours later, with him saying: “How much would it cost to buy you? I really want to put a Ryan in charge of Ryan Air. It is your destiny.”
Musk hasn’t yet learnt how to spell Ryanair
Musk has repeatedly referred to Ryanair as ‘Ryan Air.’ Whether this is a deliberate misspelling isn’t clear, although the airline is frequently misspelt like this, especially by people from outside Europe.
There is, however, some truth about Ryanair once being run by someone called Ryan. The Dublin-based carrier was founded by Christopher Ryan, Tony Ryan, and Liam Lonergan in 1984, although it was originally called Danren Enterprises before being rebranded as Ryanair.
Feud started over Ryanair’s refusal to buy Starlink Wi-Fi
A spat broke out between Elon Musk and Ryanair’s long-serving chief executive Michael O’Leary, last Wednesday when O’Leary ruled out installing Musk’s superfast Starlink Wi-Fi service on the airline’s planes.
Ryanair has never had Wi-Fi on its planes, but O’Leary was asked in an interview by Reuters whether Starlink’s advanced technology might be enough to convince the airline to change its mind.
O’Leary immediately rejected that suggestion, claiming that adding Wi-Fi to its planes would significantly increase its costs and that Ryanair passengers would not be willing to pay for the service to offset those costs.
What seemingly really angered Musk, though, was O’Leary’s assertion that the Starlink antenna that needs to be added on top of the plane’s fuselage would result in a 2% fuel penalty through increased weight and drag.
When Starlink and Musk tried to explain that Starlink antennas are much lighter than legacy Wi-Fi systems and have a much slimmer profile, O’Leary went on Irish radio and criticized Musk, saying, “What Elon Musk knows about flight and drag is zero.”
“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.”
Ryanair’s ruthless social media team is infamous
Ryanair has long taken the view that ‘any publicity is good publicity,’ and O’Leary has made a reputation for his often outspoken, combative, and, at times, outlandish statements that have garnered his airline countless headlines over the years.
O’Leary has never been afraid to criticize his own customers for the sake of publicity, and it’s earned the airline quite a reputation. The approach has never seemed to hurt Ryanair. In fact, quite the opposite.
Ryanair’s passengers know what they are getting: Very cheap flights that require strict rules and straightforward customer service (or lack thereof).
The airline’s social media team has taken O’Leary’s communications approach and run with it. Interns call out passengers online, make memes ribbing fun of customers, and quickly latch onto trends to capture the zeitgeist.
Could Elon Musk really buy Ryanair?
As the saying goes: “The quickest way to become a millionaire is to start as a billionaire and buy an airline.”
Getting into the airline business is not for the faint-hearted, and the primary motivation is normally an absolute passion for aviation… not because you have beef with the CEO of Europe’s largest and most successful low-cost airline.
That being said, could Musk really acquire Ryanair? Well, Musk’s very own Grok AI chatbot says no. European laws require airlines based in the bloc to be 50% controlled by EU nationals or entities, so Musk wouldn’t be eligible to acquire Ryanair.
