{"id":532977,"date":"2026-01-21T20:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T20:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/532977\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T20:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T20:52:16","slug":"ryanair-ceo-michael-oleary-dismisses-elon-musks-idea-of-buying-the-airline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/532977\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary dismisses Elon Musk’s idea of buying the airline"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Ryanair CEO Michael O\u2019Leary on Wednesday dismissed Elon Musk\u2019s idea of buying the budget airline and shrugged off insults from the billionaire, in a war of words that erupted over installing Starlink<\/a> systems on aircraft. <\/p>\n

The spat between one of the world\u2019s richest individuals and one of Europe\u2019s most outspoken corporate bosses has been escalating for days. O\u2019Leary said last week that the airline had ruled out putting Musk\u2019s Starlink satellite Wi-Fi on Ryanair<\/a> planes because the extra fuel drag from the system\u2019s antennas would be too costly. <\/p>\n

Responding to Musk\u2019s accusations that he was \u201cmisinformed,\u201d O\u2019Leary told an Irish radio station that \u201cI would pay no attention whatsoever to Elon Musk, he\u2019s an idiot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk fired back on his social media platform X, calling O\u2019Leary an \u201cutter idiot\u201d and an \u201cimbecile.\u201d He posted, \u201cShould I buy Ryan Air and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?\u201d and polled<\/a> his followers on the idea of buying the airline, with 76.5% responding yes.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Leary told reporters in Dublin, where Ryanair is based, that non-European citizens can\u2019t own a majority stake in a European airlines. Musk was born in South Africa and lives in the United States. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut if he wants to invest in Ryanair, we would think it\u2019s a very good investment. Certainly a significantly better investment than the financial returns he\u2019s earning on X,\u201d O\u2019Leary said. <\/p>\n

Musk purchased X in 2022 for $44 billion after clashing with top executives at the platform previously known as Twitter. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Leary, who\u2019s known for trolling critics, thanked Musk for \u201cadditional publicity.\u201d The airline has taken advantage of the spat to launch a seat sale with promotional material featuring a caricature of Musk.<\/p>\n

He brushed off the billionaire\u2019s insults. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll I would say to Elon Musk is he would have to join the back of a very, very, very, very long queue of people\u201d who have already insulted him, \u201cincluding my four teenage children,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Leary said Ryanair had been in discussions with Starlink for about 12 months on installing the system, <\/p>\n

\u201cWe like the Starlink system. It is a terrific system. It works very well,\u201d he said, but adding it would cost the company about $250 million a year. That includes the cost of installing two antennas onto each aircraft fuselage, plus an extra 2% of aerodynamic drag that would increase the fuel bill by $200 million. <\/p>\n

Ryanair would have to charge for Starlink but O\u2019Leary estimated that less than 5% of passengers would want to spend a few extra euros for the service on its short-haul flights, which average about one hour and 15 minutes. <\/p>\n

The airline is still in talks with other telecommunications providers, including Amazon, which is launching its Starlink rival Kuiper<\/a>, to provide onboard internet service, \u201cbut only in a way where it will lower our costs,\u201d O\u2019Leary said. <\/p>\n

He also addressed a recent controversy around Musk\u2019s AI chatbot Grok<\/a>, which is available through X and was being used to generate nonconsensual deepfake images. <\/p>\n

\u201cSocial media, X in particular is, a cesspit,\u201d O\u2019Leary said. \u201cThe most recent controversy with, you know, undressing children or undressing women is frankly offensive.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Ryanair CEO Michael O\u2019Leary on Wednesday dismissed Elon Musk\u2019s idea of buying the budget airline…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":532978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[6229,64,66,57,59,236132,236133,30631,235115,2241,67,132,68,107,24724],"class_list":["post-532977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-amazon-com","tag-business","tag-elon-musk","tag-general-news","tag-inc","tag-michael-oleary","tag-ryan-air","tag-ryanair-holdings-plc","tag-send-to-apple-news","tag-south-africa","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-world-news","tag-x-corp"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115935074730811178","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}