What started as a disagreement about adding satellite internet to an airline’s planes has spiraled into one of the most unusual public feuds in commercial aviation in years. Elon Musk and Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary have taken a disagreement over Starlink Wi-Fi and turned it into a full-blown war of words, par for the course for these two eccentric juveniles.
Elon Musk Threatens To Buy Ryanair And Fire Its CEO After Starlink Spat
The clash began when Ryanair’s outspoken CEO Michael O’Leary publicly ruled out installing SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service on Ryanair aircraft, arguing that doing so would add significant costs and drag that the airline could not reasonably pass on to its price-sensitive customers. When Elon Musk heard about it, he didn’t just disagree, he pushed back hard on social media, and the feud escalated quickly (thanks to One Mile At A Time for flagging this).
O’Leary isn’t shy about controversy. When asked about the idea of adding Starlink satellite Wi-Fi to Ryanair’s fleet, more than 600 Boeing 737s, he didn’t mince words. He dismissed the idea on the grounds that adding antennas would increase drag and fuel costs, estimating an additional annual expense in the hundreds of millions of euros. Because Ryanair’s flights are mostly short and ultra-low cost, he said passengers wouldn’t pay for it, and the airline couldn’t absorb the cost. Specifically, he said:
- I would pay no attention whatsoever to Elon Musk. He’s an idiot. Very wealthy, but he’s still an idiot.”
- “What Elon Musk knows about flights and drag is zero. We have to put an aerial antenna on top of the aircraft. It would cost us around $200-250 million a year. In other words, about an extra dollar for every passenger we fly. And the reality for us is that we can’t afford those costs. Passengers won’t pay for internet. If it’s free they’ll use it, but they won’t pay €1 to use the internet.”
- “I frankly wouldn’t pay any attention to anything that Elon Musk puts on that cesspit of his called X. He was the guy who advocated to getting Donald Trump elected.”
That was the opening shot. Musk responded by saying O’Leary was “misinformed” about the fuel impact and saying Ryanair would lose customers to airlines that offer internet connectivity. The dispute quickly shifted from a technical disagreement to personal insults. AfterO’Leary called Musk “an idiot” who knows nothing about aviation, and Musk returned fire with equal vigor, Musk responded, “Ryanair CEO is an utter idiot. Fire him.”
That led to calls for Musk to buy Ryanair, which he is now considering:
And continued ranting over the O’Leary’s math:
And of course the cheeky Ryanair X account, known for insulting passengers, could not help it:
People are also running the numbers:
They Are Both Right, They Are Both Wrong
Let’s not forget that Musk bought Twitter under similar circumstances…heck, it would not surprise me if he was willing to dump $53 billion to “teach O’Leary a lesson” (which of course would be music to O’Leary’s ears, since he own 4% of Ryanair).
We can debate all day about thebroader battle over in-flight connectivity and what passengers will come to expect from airlines, but I think O’Leary is right (and wrong at the same time). He’s wrong that installing Starlink will increase drag on the plane by around 2%, but he’s abostuley write that internet is not in the Ryanair business model. People will love it, but they are unwilling to pay for it…Ryanair is a true low-cost carrier and in order to (continue to) thrive, it must keep its costs low.
I’d love to see Ryanair run an experiment where they try Starlink on a few aircraft and see if people are willing to pay, but I trust O’Leary that it just isn’t part of the business model. Plus, just like with Tesla leading the way with electric vehicles but now dropping in market share, I have to imagine that there will be competition to Starlink that may be better and cheaper at some future point…it’s not wrong to wait, especially when your customer base if only concerned about price.
CONCLUSION
I can’t say I predicted a battle this week between the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, which owns Starlink and the CEO of Europe’s biggest budget airline. But beyond the personalities involved, the core issue here is real and relevant: what kind of onboard experience will passengers expect in 2026 and beyond? Will connectivity remain a luxury, or will it become a baseline expectation across every airline segment? As much as I’d love to see ubiquitous Wi-Fi on every flight, that’s just not in the cards for Ryanair and other “true” budget carriers.
For now, the feud continues, and the rest of the industry watches as two brash, eccentric, but yes brilliant in their own way, leaders hash it out in public…wow.
So basically it’s a political disagreement, like 95% of arguments in the country and the world today.
There’s a love-hate relationship with this man. If Elon really wants to run an airline (he shouldn’t), by all means, try to buy it, but that’d be a horrible distraction for him from the electric vehicles, satellite internet, and space travel that seem to be his better angles. When he goes into social media trolling, white supremacy, and defunding global social programs, he’s not doing good in the world. Of course, his (mis)treatment of his workers and family are not a bright spot either. It’s more shameful than hopeful at this point, but, he can redeem himself, still.
Exactly..
The CEO is just another socialist who hates everything that isn’t.
Why is everyone missing the most important part of why this is stupid. Elon cannot buy a controlling stake in RyanAir, EU airlines are required to have 51% EU ownership, to my knowledge Elon is not an EU Citizen so this conversation of him buying the airline is just dumb.
Is Malta still selling citizenship to Russian oligarchs? I’m confident Musk could purchase EU citizenship in a heartbeat if one of the lesser members is cash-strapped. Orban would practically gift it to him. But, perhaps, Musk is not Hungry enough yet… *ba dum tss*
You noted Musk is a billionaire but didn’t nit that O’Leary is also a billionaire. It’s like being a billionaire is a perjorative?
In a world where people die of preventable illness because we have an inept healthcare system in the wealthiest country in the world, heck ya, I’d say ‘billionaire’ absolutely is a pejorative, and these folks should not be celebrated as deities or whatever some of you think they are. They breathe and bleed, just like you and I.
Well said.
I’m no fan of O’Leary (or of flying Ryanair, for that matter). But O’Leary is absolutely spot-on in everything he’s said here. Musk is a moron. A rich moron, but a moron nonetheless.
Musk really should get a handle on the ADHD or whatever going on with his mental health. As long as he stays away from politics I’m fine with it.
I find Kara Swisher’s firsthand experiences, reporting and analysis on big-tech and Elon in-particular to be most insightful with figures like him in this era. Many of them really lost-it in the past decade and especially during the pandemic; they think of themselves as gods among mere mortals, yet, in reality, they are propped up by far smarter, far more hard-working people, and unlimited government subsidies. While we want them, their companies, our economy, and country to do well, they are largely unaccountable to the people whose lives are affected by their whims. Their recent alignment with Trump’s fascism is a major concern, and history does not offer a bright outcome, unless we push back and actually restrain these worst impulses.
Not a huge fan of either, but Musk is so much more wrestched and deplorable that he has me rooting for O’Leary.
Stupid article. Think what you want about Musk, but “What Elon Musk knows about flights and drag is zero” is just about the dumbest statement I’ve seen in a while. The guy built from the ground up innovative car and rocket companies, so it’s a safe bet he understands aerodynamics. Only an idiot would think otherwise.
Was he the one who really built them from the ground up though?
Musk is a big ideas man, the type who sells the dream to investors and brings people together to get projects off the ground. Being able to do that is certainly a talent, and it’s made him extraordinarily wealthy, but he’s not the one designing reusable rockets, satellite constellations, or anything else. He doesn’t even have much to do with the day-to-day management of his empire, and I know that to be true because that empire is now so big and complicated it’s impossible for anyone; Musk included; to be across the details of everything that’s happening in each individual executive office or research lab. That, and Elon posts on X with almost pathological frequency. It’s a huge time-sink, which is why I (and many others) gave it the boot.
O’Leary doesn’t spend his entire day trolling on X, and neither does he has a reputation for being off his tits on pot and ketamine much of the time. Ryanair pays a decent dividend (for an airline), has low debt, and strong cash-flow. Even if it were legally possible for Musk to buy Ryanair, it’s unlikely that the stockholders would be foolish enough to sell it to him. It’s an extremely well-managed company that consistently makes money. There’s no incentive to sell-out to a shit-stirring scoundrel like Elon Musk.
Starlink generally requires anyone installing their wifi to provide it for free– there’s zero world in which RyanAir is going to do that.
And in the end, as almost always happens, money will talk…
What utter codswallop on both sides about the willingness to pay for internet! First, Ryanair thrives on flogging ancillary goods and services to its pax; just one example: around half the pax on ant flight will pay to board first to guarantee space for cabin luggage. Moreover, a good proportion of Ryanair’s flights are not that short (say 2 hours plus) and to suggest that pax would not pay €1 for such as service is just nonsense.
Exactly my thought. I think they could charge a lot more than a euro as well. I think it’s a mistake to think that Ryanair customers are fundamentally different from BA customers as well. I travel on both airlines, and I would not book Ryanair for a long flight because of the lack of Wi-Fi.