‘He’s an idiot’: Musk and Ryanair boss trade insults in Starlink row
A spat over in-flight Wi-Fi has spiralled into a verbal brawl between Elon Musk and Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary.
The clash tumbled into the open after O’Leary dismissed Musk and his satellite internet business Starlink in a radio interview on Ireland’s Newstalk, calling him “an idiot”.
The verbal row widened to O’Leary telling listeners “not to pay any attention whatsoever to anything that Musk puts on that cesspit X”.
Musk fired back on X, writing: “Ryanair CEO is an utter idiot. Fire him.”
Ryanair Starlink refusal
The argument had started when it emerged that Ryanair would not be installing Starlink internet technology to its 650 aircraft, the largest airline fleet in Europe.
O’Leary had reasoned that the antennae and related hardware needed would cause weight and drag on flights, costing the airline hundreds of millions in operating costs and extra fuel.
O’Leary noted the trade off would make little sense on short-haul flights, as it would necessitate charging for the service and Ryanair customers would be unprepared to pay for the connectivity.
This led Musk to call O’Leary “misinformed” and that the decision not to include Starlink would lead to him losing passengers to other carriers, such as British Airways who have installed the service.
O’Leary countered that Musk’s knowledge of running an airline amounted to “zero”.
Ryanair’s official X account also jumped into the fray, mocking Musk during a reported outage on his platform, saying “perhaps you need Wi-Fi @elonmusk?”.