Elon Musk quarreled with the most daring of European CEOs - the head of the low-cost airline Ryanair, Michael O'Leary.

Guess which one of them was the first to call the other an idiot?

Attention! There is one swear word in this text. It is mentioned twice - in the eighth and tenth paragraphs. If you choose not to read them, you may miss some of the meaning.

Michael O'Leary, who has run the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair for more than 30 years, said his conflict with Elon Musk, which developed over the past week, gave impetus to the airline's January ticket sales. This time she received the slogan “Only for Elon Musk and all the other “idiots” in X.”

“Over the last five days, they [bookings] have grown by 2-3%, which, given our volumes, is a very significant increase,” O'Leary said at a press conference on January 21. “We like PR scandals to drive bookings,” he added , promising Musk a free ticket.

The conflict between Musk and O'Leary began like this: on January 14, the CEO of Ryanair told Reuters that the airline would not install Starlink satellite Internet systems on its aircraft. According to O'Leary, Starlink antennas must be mounted on the fuselages, and this, among other things, will increase fuel costs by an average of 2% due to an increase in the overall weight of the aircraft and air resistance. “We don't think our passengers are willing to pay for Wi-Fi on a flight that lasts an hour,” O'Leary added.

Musk, the founder of the space company SpaceX, which is deploying the Starlink system, said that O'Leary was misinformed. Musk expressed doubt that Ryanair specialists are able to correctly measure how much a satellite dish affects fuel consumption, especially on short-haul flights (due to the nature of the flight profile). “Compared to most other communication solutions, here [with Starlink], on the contrary, there would be savings and increased efficiency,” he added in his post on the social network X.

In response to this post - critical, but quite standard for Musk - O'Leary said that the head of SpaceX knows nothing about flight and air resistance. According to him, installing Starlink antennas will cost Ryanair $200-250 million a year, and the company will not be able to offset these costs from passengers because most of them are not willing to pay extra for Wi-Fi. O'Leary advised not to pay any attention to what Musk writes “in his cesspool called X”: “This guy supported the election of Donald Trump. <…> He is an idiot, very rich, but still an idiot.”

Musk, in response, also called the director of Ryanair an idiot and called for his dismissal.

O'Leary, like Musk, is known for his tongue-in-cheek and provocative public persona. For example, he argued that passengers should pay for toilets on board planes, and also joked about sex with the British Queen (and then apologized). Under his leadership, Ryanair cultivated the same image: O'Leary explained that in the early days of the company it was a way to increase recognition. Today, Ryanair carries more passengers than any other airline in Europe, but it still has a bold and unconventional approach to marketing. It showed up this time too.

On January 19, Ryanair picked up a trend from social networks with the question “What propaganda are you not falling for?” “Wi-Fi on airplanes,” the carrier wrote on its X account. Musk responded by asking, “How much does it cost to buy you [the company]?” and added : “I really want to put [some] Ryan at the head of Ryanair.” He called O'Leary a "retarded cunt" and an "insufferable chimpanzee."

The next day, Ryanair announced a big ticket sale “especially for Elon Musk and all the other idiots in X” - and illustrated it with a picture ridiculing the billionaire.

At a Jan. 21 press conference—which was billed as a response to “Musk's latest bullshit” but was in fact intended to assuage potential investor concerns—O'Leary brushed off Musk's insults: “As anyone who has teenage children knows, you're often called an idiot and a cunt. I don’t have to leave the house to be insulted.”

O'Leary said Ryanair had been in talks for a year to install the Starlink system on its planes. Ryanair's CEO says it's an "amazing system" but would be too expensive to install. In addition, O'Leary added, the parties disagreed on how popular on-board Wi-Fi would be among passengers. “Starlink believes that 90% of our passengers would happily pay for Wi-Fi access. Unfortunately, our experience shows that less than 10% of passengers are willing to pay for such access,” he said.

The head of Ryanair added that Musk, who several years ago bought his favorite social network for $44 billion, can invest in a low-cost airline, but will not be able to take control of the carrier, since EU rules will not allow this: they require that controlling stakes in European airlines belong to EU member states or their citizens.

Reuters notes that Ryanair shares rose 2% on the day of the press conference, but overall their value remained almost unchanged amid the conflict. This suggests that most investors do not take Musk's thoughts about taking over Ryanair seriously, the agency believes.

The Wall Street Journal writes that by not backing down in the skirmish with Musk (and in many ways heating it up), O'Leary set an example of how an online conflict can be monetized. “Of course, by not having a business in the United States, he has virtually nothing to lose,” the newspaper added.

O'Leary learned long ago that making someone angry can be good for business. He said Ryanair's sales were up 6% in 2023 after being pelted with pies by environmental activists in Brussels. “It’s funny, we realized that bad advertising sells a lot more tickets than good advertising,” O’Leary told the WSJ in 2024. “A lot of people who have never heard of Ryanair suddenly start Googling us and say: ‘Oh my God, look at these prices!’”