A Tesla would whisk you to the airport. The planes would be self-flying. And robots would serve the over-priced sandwiches, while, inevitably, every seat is hooked up to a live X feed. A full-scale takeover of Ryanair by Elon Musk may still be some way off, but with the billionaire polling his followers on X on whether he should make a bid for the budget airline, it is no longer impossible. Ryanair’s long-suffering passengers should welcome the prospect of a Musk takeover – because, while the airline revolutionised low-cost travel, Ryanair is stuck in a rut.
The spat between Elon Musk, and Ryanair’s pugnacious CEO Michael O’Leary is certainly entertaining for anyone who enjoys watching a contest between out-sized corporate egos. It began when O’Leary described Musk as an ‘idiot’ on Irish radio and said that X was a ‘cesspit’. He then argued that he would never install Musk’s Starlink WiFi service on his planes because it would cost too much money.
In response, Musk described O’Leary as an ‘utter idiot’, and launched a poll on X on whether he should buy the airline so he can fire O’Leary. Should that threat be taken seriously? Well, the takeover of Twitter also started as a jokey online poll, and we all know what happened next. Ryanair is only valued at $35 billion (£26 billion), hardly more than loose change to Musk. The real obstacle might be EU rules on airline ownership, but the Tesla boss has a record of bulldozing aside those kind of problems.
After more than thirty years running Ryanair, O’Leary has run out of ideas
It would be tempting to view this spat as something like a fight between a shark and a piranha fish: entertaining to watch, but a contest in which it is hard to feel much sympathy for either side. Yet there is also an argument to be made for a Musk takeover of Europe’s biggest airline.
O’Leary has been a brilliant CEO and pioneered low-cost flying across Europe. But after more than thirty years running the airline, he has run out of ideas. Ryanair is stuck in a low-cost, zero service doom loop, with contemptuous customer service. Meanwhile, the rest of the industry has moved on, working out how to serve the middle market with affordable fares and a quality product. Price is no longer everything.
Musk would be a far better owner, bringing fresh ideas and technology to aviation. Certainly, he couldn’t be any worse than O’Leary. Of course, it would be hard on all the Musk-hating, Guardian-reading liberals to stomach: they would have to choose between their principles and a £30 return flight to Tuscany (my bet is the flight wins). But, for the rest of us, the moment when Musk adds Ryanair to his growing empire can’t come soon enough.
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