Why Two 'Idiots'—Elon Musk and the CEO of Ryanair—Are Going At It

All the world's a stage for Elon Musk and Ryanair's Michael O'Leary. The rest of us? Mere spectators.

A disagreement between the aerospace company and the the budget airline operator has evolved into a full-blown public beef as the executives—Musk, of SpaceX, and Ryanair's O'Leary, neither who are strangers to confrontation or shy about making dramatic public comments—have egged each other on in a series of interviews and social media posts.

This round of sparring appears to have started on Jan. 14, when Ryanair said it wouldn't equip its planes with SpaceX-owned Starlink satellite internet service, citing fuel costs and the lack of demand from customers who take its shorter flights. When a user of X, another Musk-owned company, referenced a Reuters article with O'Leary's comments, Musk replied, calling the airline CEO "misinformed."

O'Leary escalated, saying on Irish radio station Newstalk: "I would pay no attention whatsoever to Elon Musk. He's an idiot—very wealthy, but he's still an idiot." Musk responded to a clip of that interview: "Ryanair CEO is an utter idiot," he said. "Fire him."

The beef continued to escalate from there. Ryanair used its X account to mock Musk, first over a reported outage on X with the comment, "Perhaps you need Wi-Fi @elonmusk?" Musk responded, saying: "Should I buy Ryan Air and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?"

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Over the next few days, they continued to take jabs at each other, leading to the airline running a promotion called the "Big Idiot seat sale." O'Leary in a press conference last week thanked Musk for the publicity, saying it boosted ticket sales "significantly."

Musk has responded positively to Ryanair's marketing posts on X over the years, suggesting that he, too, isn't taking the battle very seriously either. (He's also quipped about oddball acquisitions, including Coca-Cola (KO), soccer club Manchester United (MANU) and toymaker Hasbro (HAS). SpaceX did not respond to Investopedia's request for comment Monday.

The laughs have coincided with nifty boosts in wealth for the executives: Ryanair's ADRs (RYAAY) are up more than 50% since the feud started, and while SpaceX isn't public Tesla's stock (TSLA) has risen about 10% over the same period. The back-and-forth has also drawn attention to SpaceX's services before a possible mega-IPO this year—and, of course, given X users one more reason to click.