The fact that bickering (albeit with advance notice) can sometimes lead to the purchase of a microblogging service and the bringing of a sink into a company’s headquarters Tesla-Boss Elon Musk (54) has already proven this in the past. After Twitter, which he was ultimately forced to buy, is now Ryanair your turn.
In the past few days, Musk had at least a verbal argument with the head of the Irish airline, Michael O’Leary (64), because he did not want to install Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet, on his planes. Because – according to his calculation, which he made on a radio show – it would cost one euro per passenger and flight. A price that the customers of his cheap line are not willing to pay.
Incidentally, according to O’Leary, who, like Musk, is known for his calculated verbal outbursts, Musk is rich, but an idiot who has no idea about flight and air resistance and who also campaigned for the election of US President Donald Trump (79). O’Leary called Musk’s Platform X a “cesspool.”
Musk countered and also described the Ryanair boss as an “idiot” who misjudged the influence of the Starlink antennas on fuel consumption by a factor of ten. “The CEO of Ryanair is a complete idiot. Fire him,” he wrote on
Given that Ryanair founder Tony Ryan has been dead for more than 15 years, this sparked cheerful speculation about who Musk might actually be referring to. And whether Musk could finally avenge generations of burned-out travelers in this way.
By 9 p.m., around 250,000 users had cast their votes – with almost 80 percent voting for the purchase of Ryanair. By shortly before midnight German time there were more than half a million users.
However, Musk is unlikely to have time for another flying adventure. He has to breathe imagination back into the car manufacturer Tesla, which has lost significant market share in Europe, with his robotaxi story. He wants to take SpaceX public, has just sued OpenAI and Microsoft for $134 billion and has come under pressure over naked pictures of his AI Grok.
O’Leary, who says he is not present on social media, is unlikely to be bothered by the dispute. If Musk continues to fuel the takeover fantasies, the Ryanair share price could possibly rise. Which would mean a significant increase in wealth for O’Leary, who recently held around 4 percent of the airline.
Let that sink in.