At first glance the airline boss who pondered selling standing “seats” on planes to boost profits should be a good fit with the chainsaw-wielding billionaire who declared war on Washington waste. Yet Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary and Elon Musk have come to digital blows over whether Ryanair should offer its customers WiFi via Musk’s Starlink satellite network.
A spat between the two men broke out on Musk’s social network X after Ryanair estimated that Starlink would cost the airline an extra $250mn in fuel owing to the drag from the antennas. Musk suggested O’Leary was wrong; the Irishman then called X a cesspit and the Tesla founder an idiot. Musk polled followers over whether he should buy the $35bn airline.
Ryanair’s shareholders are so far largely unmoved, not least because EU rules require that its airlines are majority owned by EU shareholders, a hurdle South African-born Musk may struggle to clear. The WiFi issue, though, is a live one for airlines, whether they view it as another ancillary revenue generator, a freebie to bolster their premium offering or, more recently, the means to build advertising revenues.