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.
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.”
Ryanair CEO is an utter idiot. Fire him.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2026
That led to calls for Musk to buy Ryanair, which he is now considering:
And continued ranting over the O’Leary’s math:
He got the fuel impact calculation wrong by a factor of 10 and refuses to look either at physics-based calculations or measured fuel usage for 737s that fly Starlink.
Fire this imbecile.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2026
And of course the cheeky Ryanair X account, known for insulting passengers, could not help it:
Should I buy Ryan Air and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2026
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.
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