Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has engaged in a war of words with Elon Musk, over the latter’s internet company.
Musk, the world’s richest man, owns Starlink, a subsidiary of his SpaceX company, which provides high speed internet via its satellites.
While the internet service is used by a lot of airlines, one skeptic is Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary; who said that they wouldn’t install the satellites due to the extra fuel it would require.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has engaged in a war of words with Elon Musk, over the latter’s internet company. Pic: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images
Musk hit back at Mr O’Leary following the comments, saying that Michael is ‘misinformed’ about hypothetical fuel consumption, saying that he doubted Ryanair could ‘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.’
Ever the outspoken one, Mr O’Leary appeared on Newstalk to discuss Musk — calling the billionaire an idiot who knows nothing about flight drag and how that would affect Ryanair.
‘We’ve already had Boeing confirm we have to put an aerial antenna on top of the aircraft; now, that will cost us about a 2% fuel drag,’ he explained. ‘Our fuel bill a year is five billion; it would cost us about $200, $250 million a year. In other words, about an extra dollar for every passenger we fly and the reality for us is we can’t afford those costs.’
Mr O’Leary branded Musk (pictured) , the richest man in the world, an ‘idiot’ – while Musk threatened to buy the budget airline. Pic: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
‘Passengers won’t pay for free for internet usage; if it’s free, they’ll use it – but they won’t pay one euro each to use the internet.’
Mr O’Leary also took aim at Musk’s social media network, X (Twitter) — with its built-in AI chatbot Grok recently being internationally condemned following controversy over its ability to undress women and children — calling X a ‘cesspit,’ and Musk ‘an idiot. Very wealthy, but he’s still an idiot.’
While Musk didn’t appear on Irish radio to discuss the comments, he naturally took to his social media site to post several tweets against Mr O’Leary; calling him an ‘imbecile’ and threatening to buy the low-budget airline.
Should I buy Ryan Air and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2026
Following calls to buy the airline by his loyal followers, Elon made another jibe at Ryanair after their social media team joked if he needed some WiFi, following X’s latest outage for tens of thousands of people on Friday.
‘Should I buy RyanAir and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?’ Musk wrote, with former journalist Karl Brophy saying that it would be a genius exit strategy for Michael O’Leary, who owns an estimated €1billion in shares in the company.
Musk’s potential purchase of the airline may have already hit a snag, however, as the majority of shares need to be owned by Europeans.