{"id":427982,"date":"2026-01-21T15:33:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T15:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/427982\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T15:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T15:33:07","slug":"oleary-cant-understand-musks-umbrage-on-starlink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/427982\/","title":{"rendered":"O’Leary can’t understand Musk’s ‘umbrage’ on Starlink"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ryanair group chief executive has said he does not understand whey Elon Musk has taken such “umbrage” to his rationale for not using the Starlink internet service on Ryanair flights.<\/p>\n

Michael O’Leary said he thought his explanation about the costs of such a move for the airline “was a reasonably measured response”.<\/p>\n

He said he has had no direct contact with Elon Musk, who he described as someone who “rants and raves on X” and to whom he said Ryanair is “very happy to respond in kind”.<\/p>\n

“If he wants to call me an idiot, he certainly won’t be the first or the last,” Mr O’Leary said.<\/p>\n

The Ryanair boss said the airline has been in talks with Starlink, which is owned by Elon Musk, but he said the airline “can’t afford to shoulder the bill” for the onboard wi-fi service.<\/p>\n

Mr O’Leary described the technology as “a terrific system that works very well,” but he said installing it on Ryanair planes would cost around \u20ac250m a year.<\/p>\n

He estimated the airline’s fuel bill alone would increase by \u20ac100-200mn, due to the drag caused by the antennae mounted on the roof of the planes’ cabins.<\/p>\n

He also said he believes less than 10% of passengers would pay to access service.<\/p>\n

Read more
Musk asks X followers if he should buy Ryanair<\/a><\/p>\n

The Ryanair CEO said he would welcome Elon Musk as an investor, as the airline welcomes all shareholders.<\/p>\n

He said if the tech mogul wants to invest, “we would think it’s a very good investment”.<\/p>\n

However, given the strict EU rules on airline ownership, he said Elon Musk cannot buy or acquire a majority or controlling stake in the airline.<\/p>\n

Mr O’Leary also added that he regards social media, and X in particular, as “a cesspit”.<\/p>\n

The Ryanair boss has described his spat with Elon Musk as “good fun and games”.<\/p>\n

Mr O’Leary said the war of words has generated welcomed publicity for the airline, which he said has seen a boost in bookings in recent days.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nElon Musk<\/p>\n

He said he had lots of respect for Elon Musk but he is standing by his claim the tech billionaire is an “idiot”.<\/p>\n

“If he thinks that we can fit satellite systems or antennae onto aircraft and not have a fuel drag, he’s fundamentally wrong, and I think that’s a stupid, idiotic statement. I’m a big idiot as well. One thing we can both agree on, we’re both idiots,” he said at a Dublin press conference today.<\/p>\n

Mr O’Leary said he does not take offence from the insults that have been directed at him by Mr Musk.<\/p>\n

“If it drives bookings and drives people to the Ryanair website and increases bookings, it\u2019s all good fun,” he stated.<\/p>\n

“We want to thank him sincerely for the additional publicity,” he added.<\/p>\n

Ryanair shares rose in Dublin trade<\/a> today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ryanair group chief executive has said he does not understand whey Elon Musk has taken such “umbrage”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-427982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}