Folks, the world’s richest man and the airline industry’s richest man are arguing like little children, and they’re both wrong…
In this post:
Elon Musk & Michael O’Leary go after one another
A couple of days ago, I covered how European ultra low cost carrier Ryanair announced it had no interest in Starlink. Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary explained that installing Wi-Fi would increase drag on the plane by around 2%, and also (more importantly, if you ask me) that Ryanair passengers weren’t willing to pay for Starlink Wi-Fi.
Elon Musk claimed that O’Leary was “misinformed,” and suggested that Ryanair will lose customers if it doesn’t introduce Wi-Fi. Well, as it turns out, this disagreement was only the start of their feud, as this has escalated greatly in the past couple of days.
In a radio interview, O’Leary said:
- “I would pay no attention whatsoever to Elon Musk. He’s an idiot. Very wealthy, but he’s still an idiot.”
- “What Elon Musk knows about flights and drag is zero. We have to put an aerial antenna on top of the aircraft. It would cost us around $200-250 million a year. In other words, about an extra dollar for every passenger we fly. And the reality for us is that we can’t afford those costs. Passengers won’t pay for internet. If it’s free they’ll use it, but they won’t pay €1 to use the internet.”
- “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 to getting Donald Trump elected.”
In response to this, Elon Musk wrote on his X account that the “Ryanair CEO is an utter idiot,” and to “fire him.”
Ryanair then trolled Musk on X about claims that the site was experiencing outages, to which Musk responded “should I buy Ryan Air and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?”
Then you have people online theorizing about how if Elon Musk paid a 50% premium to Ryanair shareholders, he could buy the entire company for $53 billion, which would be just 7% of his total net worth.
My take on the Starlink & Ryanair controversy
If you ask me, both Musk and O’Leary are completely off base here. Admittedly they’re both people who are known for making outlandish comments, so that’s hardly surprising, since they’re more worried about making headlines than making sense.
O’Leary suggesting that “what Elon Musk knows about flights and drag is zero” is a bit of a stretch, no doubt. I think the SpaceX engineers probably know more about the added fuel burn of the Starlink hardware than Ryanair does, given that the airline has seemingly never had any interest in this service.
Here’s the thing, though. Say what you will about O’Leary, and I’m certainly not a fan of many of his antics. But he has run the world’s most successful ultra low cost carrier for decades, and he’s one of the only people in the world who has become a billionaire as the long term CEO of an airline.
O’Leary knows what passengers are willing to pay for, and what they aren’t, and he’s probably right that Ryanair wouldn’t be able to command higher fares if it introduced Starlink. That’s not why people choose the airline.
The funniest escalation in this entire debate is suggesting that Musk should buy Ryanair so that O’Leary can be fired. I love the above scenario of Musk paying a 50% premium on Ryanair’s stock price. If O’Leary is smart, he’ll keep this feud going and get Musk to follow through on this. That’s because O’Leary is the person with the most to gain by Musk buying Ryanair and firing him! He owns over 4% of the company, so his net worth would go up 50% overnight if the company were to be purchased at a premium.
Bottom line
Elon Musk and Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary are in quite the feud over Starlink. It all started with O’Leary claiming the airline wasn’t interested in Starlink, both due to increased fuel burn, and because passengers aren’t willing to pay for the service. Musk disagreed, then O’Leary called Musk an idiot, then Musk called O’Leary an idiot and demanded he be fired, etc.
Billionaires really need more hobbies, eh?
What do you make of this Starlink feud, and who do you side with?
As much as I personally dislike O'Leary, he never ran a company into the ground. He may not be as high-profile, but he's ten times the businessman Elon ever will be.
The funniest thing, though, is all the non-European Musk fanboys completely missing the mark on Ryanair. Listen, vaporware techbros, the airline has transformed flying in Europe. It has the most comprehensive network, let alone their unmatched point-to-point offering, and it's been able to generate...
As much as I personally dislike O'Leary, he never ran a company into the ground. He may not be as high-profile, but he's ten times the businessman Elon ever will be.
The funniest thing, though, is all the non-European Musk fanboys completely missing the mark on Ryanair. Listen, vaporware techbros, the airline has transformed flying in Europe. It has the most comprehensive network, let alone their unmatched point-to-point offering, and it's been able to generate new demand wherever it appeared. Wi-fi is absolutely not going to move the needle here.
And yes, ever my previous, UK-based VP and CTO would fly Ryanair to visit clients and our continental offices, because they offered nonstops from where he lived. You may despise their extreme upsells and over-the-top PR, but they manage their core business better than any other airline out there.
I thought that Elon was intentionally satirising as a wannabe Bond Villain. No longer do I believe that it is an act, he is an eccentric idiot.
Musk is a fascist c. If Ryanair doesn’t want to buy a product that’s their decision.
Oh now I get it, you're one of those people who thinks everyone who isn't a left wing psychopath is a fascist. I can safely ignore everything you write now.
So a glorified bus company owner is gonna tell a guy who builds rocket ships that he's an idiot that knows nothing about drag? O'Leary may know his eurotrash customers, but that's about it. As a mechanical engineer I'm 100% certain starlink knows exactly what the drag and fuel burn are on just about every major airframe. If Elon says it's about 0.2% increased fuel burn then I'll believe it.
It's safe to say that...
So a glorified bus company owner is gonna tell a guy who builds rocket ships that he's an idiot that knows nothing about drag? O'Leary may know his eurotrash customers, but that's about it. As a mechanical engineer I'm 100% certain starlink knows exactly what the drag and fuel burn are on just about every major airframe. If Elon says it's about 0.2% increased fuel burn then I'll believe it.
It's safe to say that Starlink wouldn't sell to them now even if they begged for it. At some point when they are the only carrier that doesn't have internet access, they will indeed lose customers.
I doubt they will lose customers.
And regardless of what technical knowledge O’Leary has or doesn’t have, this is just Musk being butthurt about a company publicly rejecting getting Starlink. How dare they!
No, they could have not bought the produc and left it at thatt, but they make false claims about the drag and fuel burn (could be a defamation lawsuit coming), and then calls Musk an idiot. He's the one that made it personal.
Not everyone who flies FR is trash. They have a successful business model. You don’t select an airline entirely on the basis of Internet access. Most flights are short and they carry 200 million pax annually. If you’re a mechanical engineer or probably a glorified name for a plumber, you clearly have don’t any knowledge about running an airline.
@Icarus
You know even less about both subjects, so why are you even commenting with a lame argument by authority fallacy? Careful, you're flying too close to the sun again.
Honestly, very few people choose a flight based on the airline itself. On most routes, there’s little real competition anyway with the same schedule. And when there is, Ryanair doesn’t offer the best experience, nor do they pretend to. They compete on price, and very often, they win.
On top of that, you usually still have mobile internet for about five minutes after takeoff and again around fifteen minutes before landing. That means on...
Honestly, very few people choose a flight based on the airline itself. On most routes, there’s little real competition anyway with the same schedule. And when there is, Ryanair doesn’t offer the best experience, nor do they pretend to. They compete on price, and very often, they win.
On top of that, you usually still have mobile internet for about five minutes after takeoff and again around fifteen minutes before landing. That means on most Ryanair flights, you’re offline for barely 30 minutes.
Please Elton, do buy Ryanair and sack the O’Leary. If he needs an extra bob-or-two, I am more than willing to raid my piggy bank …. :-)
Musk buying Ryanair is not working legally as you have to be a citizen of the country where the airline is holding its operating licence if you want to own a more than 50% share of an airline , in some countries even less. So Musk would have to part with his US citizenship…
I don't think Elon Musk has Us Citizenship in the first place.
The entire world is being turned into a toxic schoolyard for the ultra wealthy 2%. Meanwhile the rest of us are forced to run for cover wherever we can.
Elon Musk behaves as if he owns the world. He may buy one of the US big 3 airlines if he wants to run an airline. Or he may launch his own "Tesla Airlines" and make it the biggest airline in USA. Ryanair doesn't need him.
But Nasir, EM already has an ‘airline’. The fact that it only goes up or down, is of little consequence. The seat cost per mile must be enormous.
Which is worst -- two conceited billionaires, or someone who writes "one of the only people in the world" ?
The person who writes ….worst instead of WORSE.