Tesla billionaire’s X poll asking followers if he should buy €30 billion airline and “restore Ryan as rightful ruler” draws 78% support, yet muted share price reaction suggests investors view threat as theatrical escalation of Starlink dispute

Elon Musk ignited fresh controversy Monday by posting an X poll asking his 213 million followers whether he should purchase Ryanair Holdings and “restore Ryan as their rightful ruler”—a reference to the airline’s late founder Tony Ryan, who died in 2007. The poll, which attracted over 30 million views and 595,000 votes (78% in favour), represents the latest escalation in a public brawl between the world’s richest man and Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary that began as a business disagreement over in-flight Wi-Fi and quickly devolved into mutual insults of “utter idiot” and “cesspit” characterizations.

The Starlink Dispute That Sparked the Feud

The confrontation originated when O’Leary dismissed the possibility of installing SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet on Ryanair’s fleet during a January podcast interview with Irish radio company Newstalk. The 64-year-old CEO—known for his combative media style and cost-obsessed management philosophy—argued that Starlink installation would cost €200-250 million annually across Ryanair’s fleet, adding approximately €1 per passenger to ticket prices. “I would pay no attention whatsoever to Elon Musk—he’s an idiot,” O’Leary declared. “While he’s very wealthy, he’s still an idiot.”

O’Leary’s technical objections centered on aerodynamic drag from Starlink antennas increasing fuel consumption, plus the expense of retrofitting hundreds of aircraft. Crucially, he claimed passengers wouldn’t pay even €1 for in-flight internet despite using it if offered free—making the investment economically irrational for Ryanair’s ultra-low-cost model where passengers already pay extra for checked bags, priority boarding and even printing boarding passes.

Musk fired back on X, branding O’Leary “an utter idiot” and posting simply “Fire him.” He contended that O’Leary was “misinformed” about Starlink’s performance impact and that in-flight connectivity had evolved from luxury to necessity—airlines refusing to offer internet would lose customers to competitors. The Tesla CEO’s counterargument ignored O’Leary’s core point: Ryanair’s €20-30 ticket price model depends on charging passengers separately for every optional service, and if customers won’t pay for Wi-Fi, installing it destroys value rather than creating competitive advantage.

Is Musk Serious? The Market’s Verdict

Financial markets delivered a resounding assessment: Musk’s Ryanair acquisition threat isn’t credible. The airline’s shares—trading on Euronext at approximately €28.83—briefly ticked up Tuesday morning before sliding back to levels lower than a week earlier, essentially flat and completely ignoring the billionaire’s takeover musings. This muted reaction starkly contrasts with typical market behaviour when credible acquisition interest emerges; shares usually spike on takeover speculation as investors anticipate premium buyout offers.

Several factors explain market skepticism:

1. Regulatory Impossibility: EU aviation rules mandate that airlines based in the bloc must be majority-owned by EU nationals or citizens of Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein. Musk, as an American citizen (despite South African birth), cannot legally acquire majority control of Ryanair. The airline’s €30 billion ($36 billion) market capitalization—while representing less than 5% of Musk’s estimated $700+ billion net worth—would require regulatory approvals that simply don’t exist under current frameworks.

2. Pattern Recognition: Musk’s Twitter/X acquisition in 2022 followed identical theatrical patterns—provocative tweets, public polls, dramatic pronouncements—that markets initially dismissed as posturing before realizing Musk genuinely intended to follow through. Yet that $44 billion deal became legendary for Musk’s subsequent attempts to back out, requiring legal compulsion to complete the transaction. Investors now view Musk’s acquisition threats with extreme caution, recognizing a tendency toward impulsive declarations that don’t translate to serious strategic intent.

3. Strategic Incoherence: Musk’s existing portfolio—Tesla (electric vehicles), SpaceX (rockets/satellites), X (social media), Neuralink (brain interfaces), Boring Company (tunnels), xAI (artificial intelligence)—shares technological synergies around automation, AI, connectivity and transportation infrastructure. Acquiring a legacy airline with massive labor forces, complex regulatory burdens, razor-thin margins and capital-intensive operations fits nowhere in this ecosystem. Starlink adoption by airlines represents a B2B revenue opportunity that doesn’t require owning carriers.

4. O’Leary’s Entrenchment: The Ryanair CEO ranks among the airline’s top 10 shareholders and recently received major bonus packages for achieving performance metrics that drove shares up 55% in 2025. Dislodging O’Leary—who built Ryanair into Europe’s largest budget carrier over decades—would require not just acquisition capital but boardroom support that seems implausible given his track record delivering shareholder returns.

Theatrical Provocation or Genuine Threat?

The exchange bears hallmarks of Musk’s established online behavior patterns: hyperbolic threats, personal attacks, poll-based decision-making theater, and trolling designed to dominate news cycles and assert dominance over adversaries. His comment about giving Ryanair’s social media team “bonuses and free Starlink” after one user warned him not to dismantle it (as he did at Twitter) reveals awareness that much of this constitutes performance rather than serious corporate strategy.

Ryanair’s social media team—known industry-wide for edgy, confrontational humor—appears to recognize the dynamic, posting during an X outage: “Need Wi-Fi?” in apparent mockery of Musk’s connectivity arguments. O’Leary himself has described X as “a cesspit” and largely avoids social media engagement, making him an unlikely target to be intimidated by online pile-ons from Musk’s follower base.

Why It Matters Despite Being Theatre

Yet dismissing the episode as pure spectacle understates several significant implications:

Brand Leverage Warfare: Musk’s 213 million X followers represent unprecedented amplification capacity. His ability to mobilize public opinion—or at least create appearance of overwhelming consensus through polls—functions as soft power tool that can damage corporate reputations, influence customer perceptions and pressure boards even without acquisition capability. The 78% poll support for Musk buying Ryanair demonstrates this influence, regardless of financial viability.

Starlink Commercial Strategy: The public feud serves SpaceX’s broader objective of positioning Starlink as essential aviation infrastructure. Every major airline evaluating in-flight connectivity now confronts this Ryanair case study, with Musk framing refusal as backwards-thinking incompetence. Lufthansa, British Airways and United Airlines have all announced Starlink deployments, creating peer pressure on holdouts like Ryanair even as O’Leary’s cost analysis may prove economically rational.

CEO Conduct Precedents: Musk’s willingness to weaponize acquisition threats, publicly demand CEO firings and mobilize follower harassment represents troubling escalation in how billionaires wield social media influence against corporate targets. The pattern established with Twitter’s acquisition—initial mockery followed by forced completion—creates uncertainty about whether any Musk threat can be safely dismissed.

Market Desensitization Risk: If markets correctly assess this Ryanair threat as theatrical, they may underestimate Musk’s next genuine acquisition target. The boy-who-cried-wolf dynamic creates opportunities for Musk to execute surprise strategic moves while markets assume he’s merely trolling.

For now, investors betting on Ryanair’s status quo appear correct. O’Leary continues running Europe’s most profitable budget airline, passengers continue flying without Wi-Fi, and Musk continues posting provocative polls. Yet the episode illustrates how billionaire social media influence reshapes corporate power dynamics in ways traditional governance frameworks struggle to address—a challenge that persists regardless of whether any specific acquisition threat materializes.

Musk’s Ryanair poll may be theater, but the power to command global attention, shape narratives and pressure corporations through social media remains very real indeed.

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