There is currently a remarkable mudslinging match going on between Starlink and Tesla owner Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, and Michael O’Leary, the CEO of Ryanair.

What began as a business discussion about Wi-Fi on board airplanes has escalated into personal insults and even a laconic threat from Musk to buy Ryanair.

Extreme focus on cost reductions

The situation escalated when O’Leary announced that his low-cost airline, Ryanair, has no plans to install Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet, on its aircraft. O’Leary said that after Lufthansa had entered into a partnership with Starlink to equip all the group’s approximately 850 aircraft with high-speed broadband internet access from 2026 onwards.

For Lufthansa, Wi-Fi is a necessary premium service, but for O’Leary, it’s a completely different strategic consideration. The antennas on the aircraft’s roof add extra weight and air resistance, which would increase fuel consumption by an additional 2%. According to O’Leary, this would cost Ryanair an extra 200 to 250 million dollars per year. Furthermore, the CEO believes that passengers on short flights do not need Wi-Fi.

Blame back and forth

Musk responded that O’Leary was misinformed, saying that airlines that do not offer internet access will lose their customers, to which the latter called Musk an ‘idiot’. It said, “What Elon Musk knows about flying and aerodynamics is zero.” When the video of that interview went viral on Irish Newstalk, Musk responded with, “The CEO of Ryanair is an utter idiot. Fire him. Make sure he sees this message.”

However, it didn’t stop there. When the online messaging platform X suffered a global outage last week, Ryanair’s social media squad seized the opportunity to troll Musk: “Perhaps you need W-Fi, @elonmusk? 😉”

Musk didn’t take the joke well and responded to X by asking how much it would cost to buy the airline, then launching a poll proposing to buy Ryanair “and make Ryan the rightful leader again”. When more than 77% of the millions of voters voted “Yes”, Musk added to the result that he would appoint someone called “Ryan”, a dig at O’Leary, who is not related to the founders.

Ryanair, known for its cheeky social media strategy and according to its sacred belief that “bad publicity sells”, responded yesterday by launching a “Great Idiots Seat Sale.” They are offering 100,000 seats for €16,99, specifically intended for “Elon and all the other idiots on X.” They even changed their header on X to a cartoon of O’Leary punching Musk.

Experts contradict O’Leary

To be clear: although O’Leary is technically correct that an antenna adds weight and drag, experts believe his 2% estimate is greatly exaggerated and seriously outdated. Earlier satellite antennas used large, domed covers that did indeed cause significant air resistance. However, the Starlink antennas are phased array antennas. These are much flatter and more aerodynamic.

Michael Nicolls, VP Engineering at Starlink, also responded directly to O’Leary with data; For a Boeing 737-800, Ryanair’s standard aircraft, the Starlink antenna increases fuel consumption by only 0,3%. Musk even claims that they will be able to reduce this to 0,1% in the future.

Plus, on a short flight, such as those usually operated by Ryanair, a large part of the flight is the climb phase, during which a flat antenna on top of the fuselage causes almost no additional air resistance. The drag is mainly present during “cruising” at high altitude. But for a low-cost airline like Ryanair, even a 0,3% increase in fuel costs across a fleet of hundreds of aircraft still amounts to millions of pounds per year.

Trolling, ego, and media attention

And despite Musk’s threats, experts say he cannot legally buy Ryanair. As a non-EU citizen, European law prohibits him from owning a majority stake in an EU airline. However, this should mainly be seen as sarcastic taunting from a business person with a controversial streak who also aspires to political power.

Ryanair has a market value of 30 billion euros. As a real takeover usually requires a 20 to 40% premium over the share price, that implies a range of 36 to 43 billion euros. Although that is a drop in the ocean for Musk, who paid 44 billion dollars to buy Twitter in 2022, which he then renamed X. Forbes estimates Musk’s real-time net worth at 766,6 billion dollars. This put him firmly in first place as the world’s richest person.

O’Leary is holding a press conference in Dublin on Wednesday to address Musk’s ‘Twittershit’. For those who relish spectacle on social media, there seems to be no end in sight to the escalation between two of the most outspoken and provocative businesspeople in the world, with O’Leary in particular seeming to capitalize on the free publicity and his ability to use his image primarily as a marketing tool.