Elon Musk Considering Buying Another Billion Dollar Company

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Elon Musk just did what Elon Musk does best, say the quiet part out loud, light a fuse, and watch the corporate world panic. This time the target was Ryanair, after its CEO decided to mouth off about Musk and dismiss Starlink internet as useless for airline passengers. Musk’s response was not a carefully worded press release. It was a digital sledgehammer.

“Ryanair CEO is an utter idiot. Fire him,” Musk wrote on X, responding to a clip of Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary calling Musk an idiot over in flight internet. O’Leary had rejected installing SpaceX’s Starlink on Ryanair planes and decided to spice things up by saying Musk was a “very wealthy” idiot, as if that somehow softened the insult.

Musk, unsurprisingly, did not take that lying down. When someone suggested he simply buy Ryanair and fire O’Leary himself, Musk replied, “good idea.” That one comment sent social media into a frenzy and put Ryanair’s market watchers on edge. Suddenly, what sounded like a joke did not feel so hypothetical.

The feud escalated after Ryanair’s own social media account mocked Musk during a brief X outage, asking, “Perhaps you need Wi-Fi.” According to Forbes, that jab was enough to push Musk into full trolling mode. He publicly asked, “How much would it cost to buy you?” and later floated the idea of buying “Ryan Air” and restoring “Ryan” as its rightful ruler, because of course he did.

This whole mess started because O’Leary ruled out Starlink for Ryanair’s fleet of more than 600 aircraft. He claimed the antenna would create drag, increase fuel costs by about two percent, and cost the airline as much as $250 million a year. He also insisted Ryanair passengers would not pay extra for Wi-Fi on short flights. Musk fired back, saying O’Leary was misinformed and that Ryanair did not know how to properly measure the fuel impact of Starlink equipment.

Here is the bigger picture. Ryanair has built its brand on being cheap, blunt, and occasionally obnoxious. Elon Musk has built multiple world changing companies by ignoring people exactly like Michael O’Leary. When those two personalities collide, sparks are guaranteed.

Is Musk actually going to buy Ryanair? Probably not. But people also said he would never buy Twitter, never build reusable rockets, and never make electric cars mainstream. Musk has a habit of doing things simply because someone told him it was stupid or impossible.

At minimum, this episode exposed something important. Legacy executives like O’Leary still think innovation is a nuisance and the future is optional. Musk sees technology as leverage, not an expense. Whether or not he ever makes a bid for Ryanair, he already won the exchange. He made an ultra low cost airline CEO look small, defensive, and stuck in the past, all with a few keystrokes.

And that is why people keep underestimating Elon Musk, right up until he owns the thing they said he could never touch.