Ryanair chief calls Elon Musk “an idiot” in spat over Starlink

Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of budget airline Ryanair, called Elon Musk “an idiot” after ruling out the use of Starlink internet on his planes.

“I would pay no attention to Elon Musk, he’s an idiot. Very wealthy, but still an idiot,” O’Leary said on a radio show Newstalk.

O’Leary made his comments in response to Musk calling him “misinformed” on his social media platform X after Ryanair ruled out the idea of equipping its planes with the billionaire's Starlink satellite internet.

O’Leary said it would be too expensive, citing the impact of fuel costs from drag caused by the antenna and the short lengths of Ryanair flights.

Musk challenged his reasoning, to which O’Leary responded: “What Elon Musk knows about flights and drag would be zero.”

According to Ryanair’s chief, setting up Starlink internet in its fleet would cost the airline up to $250 million a year, or an extra dollar for every passenger it flies.

“And the reality for us is we can’t afford those costs. Passengers won’t pay for the internet, for internet usage. If it’s free, they’ll use it. But they won’t pay €1 each to use the internet. So, we’re not putting it on board,” O’Leary told Newstalk.

“And I frankly wouldn’t pay any attention to anything that Elon Musk puts on that cesspit of his called X. He was the guy who advocated getting Donald Trump elected,” he said.

He is being misinformed. I doubt they can even measure the difference in fuel use accurately, especially for a one hour flight, where the incremental drag is basically zero during the ascent phase due to high angle of attack.

And compared to most other connectivity solutions,…

undefined Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 15, 2026

Starlink also chimed in on the debate, with its vice president of engineering, Michael Nicolls, saying that the 2% fuel “penalty” cited by Ryanair would be true for legacy terminals, but not Starlink.

“Our analysis shows that the fuel increase to a 737-800 (which burns 800 gallons/hour) with our current design is about 0.3%. Also beg to differ on whether passengers want great WiFi in flight,” Nicolls said on X.

As expected, the feud escalated further, with Musk calling O'Leary "an utter idiot" and saying Ryanair should "fire him."

Shortly after Musk's retorts, however, a technical issue temporarily knocked out X, which made Ryanair make fun of the billionaire on his own platform, posting, "Perhaps you need Wi-Fi @elonmusk?"

"Should I buy Ryanair and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?" Musk responded.

Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline, is under pressure to offer its passengers satellite internet after several rivals moved in that direction.

Latvia’s airBaltic was the first European airline to roll out free high-speed Starlink internet. Scandinavian carrier SAS picked Starlink as its provider last year, while Germany’s Lufthansa announced this week that it would also install the service.

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