Folks, the world’s richest man and the airline industry’s richest man are arguing like little children, and they’re both wrong…
Elon Musk & Michael O’Leary go after one another
A couple of days ago, I covered how European ultra low cost carrier Ryanair announced it had no interest in Starlink. Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary explained that installing Wi-Fi would increase drag on the plane by around 2%, and also (more importantly, if you ask me) that Ryanair passengers weren’t willing to pay for Starlink Wi-Fi.
Elon Musk claimed that O’Leary was “misinformed,” and suggested that Ryanair will lose customers if it doesn’t introduce Wi-Fi. Well, as it turns out, this disagreement was only the start of their feud, as this has escalated greatly in the past couple of days.
In a radio interview, O’Leary 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.”
In response to this, Elon Musk wrote on his X account that the “Ryanair CEO is an utter idiot,” and to “fire him.”
Ryanair CEO is an utter idiot. Fire him.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2026
Ryanair then trolled Musk on X about claims that the site was experiencing outages, to which Musk responded “should I buy Ryan Air and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?”
Should I buy Ryan Air and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2026
Then you have people online theorizing about how if Elon Musk paid a 50% premium to Ryanair shareholders, he could buy the entire company for $53 billion, which would be just 7% of his total net worth.
My take on the Starlink & Ryanair controversy
If you ask me, both Musk and O’Leary are completely off base here. Admittedly they’re both people who are known for making outlandish comments, so that’s hardly surprising, since they’re more worried about making headlines than making sense.
O’Leary suggesting that “what Elon Musk knows about flights and drag is zero” is a bit of a stretch, no doubt. I think the SpaceX engineers probably know more about the added fuel burn of the Starlink hardware than Ryanair does, given that the airline has seemingly never had any interest in this service.
Here’s the thing, though. Say what you will about O’Leary, and I’m certainly not a fan of many of his antics. But he has run the world’s most successful ultra low cost carrier for decades, and he’s one of the only people in the world who has become a billionaire as the long term CEO of an airline.
O’Leary knows what passengers are willing to pay for, and what they aren’t, and he’s probably right that Ryanair wouldn’t be able to command higher fares if it introduced Starlink. That’s not why people choose the airline.
The funniest escalation in this entire debate is suggesting that Musk should buy Ryanair so that O’Leary can be fired. I love the above scenario of Musk paying a 50% premium on Ryanair’s stock price. If O’Leary is smart, he’ll keep this feud going and get Musk to follow through on this. That’s because O’Leary is the person with the most to gain by Musk buying Ryanair and firing him! He owns over 4% of the company, so his net worth would go up 50% overnight if the company were to be purchased at a premium.
O’Leary has a lot to be gained by being fired!
Bottom line
Elon Musk and Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary are in quite the feud over Starlink. It all started with O’Leary claiming the airline wasn’t interested in Starlink, both due to increased fuel burn, and because passengers aren’t willing to pay for the service. Musk disagreed, then O’Leary called Musk an idiot, then Musk called O’Leary an idiot and demanded he be fired, etc.
Billionaires really need more hobbies, eh?
What do you make of this Starlink feud, and who do you side with?
