Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary launched a “Great Idiots” seat sale on Tuesday – with the aim Elon Musk and his supporters — after the Starlink boss targeted O’Leary for passing on a proposal to install the satellite-based internet service on its fleet of commercial aircraft.
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Their feud came to a head last week after the billionaire called O’Leary a “complete idiot” for rejecting the proposal and an offer to buy the budget airline.
Musk suggested he could “trust someone with the real name Ryan” and ran a poll on X to test the idea, with three-quarters of respondents supporting it.
O’Leary made light of Musk’s urging, telling reporters at a news conference in Dublin on Wednesday: “If he wants to call me an idiot, he wouldn’t be the first, and he certainly won’t be the last… But if it helps boost Ryanair sales, you could insult me
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He continued to call social media “a cesspool” but acknowledged that it was important for Ryanair’s marketing.
O’Leary said installing Wi-Fi on his planes using Musk’s Internet service would cost an estimated $250 million a year, including additional fuel costs, but he would welcome the investment.
“Ryanair would be open to investment from the world’s richest person, but a takeover is impossible due to EU rules restricting foreign airline ownership,” he said.
Ryanair is also a public company, but Musk “has the freedom to buy shares at any time,” O’Leary mused.
EU-based airlines must also be majority owned by EU citizens, Swiss citizens, Norwegian citizens, Icelandic citizens or Liechtenstein citizens European Parliament.
FILE – Elon Musk attends the Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025.
Photo/Evan Vucci, File
“If he wants to invest in Ryanair, we think it’s a very good investment,” O’Leary said, adding the return would be better than that of Musk’s social media platform X. “Mr. Musk is welcome to buy shares, but he can’t take control,” he added.
O’Leary also confirmed that their public argument, which he called Musk’s “Twitter tantrum,” had led to a spike in seat bookings.
“They are up about two to three percent in the last five days, which is quite a significant increase given our volumes,” he said. He later told a reporter that bookings were good for January to March, the final quarter of Ryanair’s financial year.
O’Leary said he had been talking to Starlink for a year and had considered onboard Wi-Fi, but had decided it was too costly an investment.
He said Ryanair was looking for a provider willing to finance the installation and that both sides had significant disagreements over how many passengers would use the service.
“The people at Starlink believe that nine percent of our passengers would happily pay for Wi-Fi access. Unfortunately, our experience shows that we believe less than 10 percent of our passengers would pay for this access,” he said, adding that Musk has “zero” knowledge of flying.
— With files from Reuters
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