Elon Musk has ignited fresh social media chatter after publicly clashing with Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary and jokingly asking whether he should buy the low-cost airline, following another outage on X (formerly Twitter).
The exchange unfolded on Friday (January 16), hours after X experienced service disruptions. Ryanair took a swipe at Musk by posting on the platform: “Perhaps you need Wi-Fi, @elonmusk?” The remark appeared to mock the outage, prompting a sharp response from the billionaire.
“Should I buy Ryan Air and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?” Musk wrote in reply, a post that quickly went viral and drew thousands of reactions.
Social media users piled on with humour and scepticism. One user urged Musk to go ahead, while another joked that Ryanair would lure him in with a cheap price before charging for “all kinds of extras.” A third quipped: “Best way to become a millionaire is to be a billionaire and buy an airline.”
The online sparring traces back to comments made earlier in the week, when O’Leary ruled out installing Starlink satellite internet on Ryanair’s fleet of more than 600 aircraft. The Ryanair chief cited concerns over fuel efficiency and costs, estimating that the service could cost the airline up to $250 million annually.
“You need to put an antenna on the fuselage; it comes with a 2% fuel penalty because of the weight and drag,” O’Leary said. “We don’t think our passengers are willing to pay for Wi-Fi for an average one-hour flight.”
Musk, whose company SpaceX operates Starlink, pushed back strongly, calling O’Leary “misinformed” and accusing the airline of failing to properly measure the fuel impact of the equipment. He escalated the rhetoric by posting: “Ryanair CEO is an utter idiot. Fire him.”
When a follower suggested Musk should simply buy Ryanair and dismiss O’Leary himself, Musk replied: “Good idea.”
Musk has repeatedly argued that in-flight connectivity is shifting from a premium feature to a basic expectation, warning that airlines without internet access risk losing passengers to better-connected rivals.
