{"id":238326,"date":"2026-01-17T16:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T16:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/238326\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T16:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T16:42:08","slug":"musk-clashes-with-ryanair-boss-over-spacexs-starlink-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/238326\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk clashes with Ryanair boss over SpaceX’s Starlink internet"},"content":{"rendered":"

A dispute between Elon Musk <\/a>and Ryanair chief executive<\/a> Michael O’Leary escalated quickly after the airline boss said he would not install the billionaire’s Starlink internet services<\/a> aboard the fleet of more than 600 aircraft. <\/p>\n

The two outspoken company leaders clashed after Mr O’Leary on Wednesday dismissed the idea of equipping the low-cost airline’s jets with the Starlink high-speed Wi-Fi service. <\/p>\n

Mr O’Leary cited fuel costs of $200 million to $250 million a year, or an extra $1 per passenger, from the weight and drag of the external antenna that would need to be mounted on the fuselage. <\/p>\n

He said passengers would be unwilling to pay for Wi-Fi on short-haul flights. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Elon Musk knows about flights and drag would be zero \u2026 I frankly wouldn’t pay any attention to anything that Elon Musk puts on that cesspit of his called X,\u201d Mr O’Leary told Irish broadcaster NewsTalk. \u201cHe’s an idiot. Very wealthy but he’s still an idiot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Musk \u2013 the richest person on the planet, with a purported net worth of $681 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index \u2013 fired back on his social media platform X, saying Mr O’Leary was \u201cmisinformed\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d the billionaire said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompared to most other solutions, there would actually be gains in efficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, the boss of SpaceX and Tesla responded to Mr O’Leary’s criticisms calling him \u201can utter idiot\u201d and demanding to \u201cfire him\u201d.<\/p>\n

In response to an X user’s comment urging him to buy Ryanair and fire the airline chief himself, Mr Musk replied: \u201cGood idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a separate post on X Mr Musk mused: \u201cShould I buy Ryan Air and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?\u201d<\/p>\n

Titans of industry<\/p>\n

The war of words spiralled between the two corporate leaders whose colourful comments and strong opinions often make global headlines. <\/p>\n

Mr O’Leary has run Ryanair for more than 30 years and has transformed it into Europe\u2019s biggest budget airline, democratising regional air travel. <\/p>\n

Mr Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX ventures, as well as his forays into US politics with controversial opinions have made the tech billionaire a household name.<\/p>\n

Airlines have become increasingly important customers of Starlink, a network powered by thousands \u2060of low-Earth orbit satellites that aims to provide faster \u2060and more reliable in-flight Wi-Fi. <\/p>\n

Dozens of airlines \u2013 including Emirates, flydubai, Qatar Airways, United Airlines and Lufthansa \u2013 are rolling out the ultra-fast Wi-Fi service on board their fleets.<\/p>\n

Starlink is already available in parts of the Middle East, including Qatar<\/a>, Oman<\/a>, Bahrain<\/a> and Jordan<\/a>. It is also set for Lebanon after the government granted a licence to the satellite network in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dispute between Elon Musk and Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary escalated quickly after the airline boss said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[17622,11721,516,111,139,69,147,392,1503,1177,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-238326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-airlines","9":"tag-business-team","10":"tag-elon-musk","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-space","16":"tag-spacex","17":"tag-standard","18":"tag-story"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}