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Michael O'Leary has hit out as Tesla boss Elon Musk.
10:49, Wed, Jan 21, 2026 Updated: 11:33, Wed, Jan 21, 2026
Michael O'Leary (Image: Getty)
Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary has hit out at Elon Musk as the billionaires' feud rumbles on. Michael O’Leary, CEO of Irish budget airline Ryanair said Musk can insult him “all day, every day” if it helps to boost sales as an escalation of his feud with the world's richest man.
Slamming Musk as an "idiot" O'Leary thanked the world's richest man for boosting Europe's busiest airline sales. O'Leary said: "We are sending around to our Dublin offices this morning a free ticket for Elon Musk as part of our 'big idiot' seat sale.
"I have included myself and him in this 'big idiot' seat sale. I suspect he is a bigger idiot than me, but he probably thinks I'm a bigger idiot than him."
O'Leary said he suspects Musk is a 'bigger idiot' (Image: Getty)
Ryanair's CEO added that he would welcome an investment from Musk. O'Leary told a press conference today, January 21: "We're a publicly owned company. He's free to do so at any time, but non-European citizens cannot own a majority of European airlines.
"If he wants to invest in Ryanair, we would think it's a very good investment."
It comes after Ryanair launched a ticket sale called the “Big ‘Idiot’ Seat Sale” where O'Leary offered the Tesla owner a "free ticket".
The new jab features a mock-up of both men on a plinth reading "big idiots" with Musk holding a red model Tesla car, and has a model rocket beside his left leg. The promotion offered 100,000 seats from £16.99, available "only for Elon Musk and any other 'idiots' on X".
Ryanair's “Big ‘Idiot’ Seat Sale” (Image: Ryanair )
“Elon Musk apparently took great umbrage and resorted to insulting me on X at the weekend, calling me an idiot,” Mr O’Leary said.
“I think, yesterday, he also rounded on me and called me, I think, a retarded twat. All I would say to Elon Musk is he would have to join the back of a very, very, very, very long queue of people who already think I’m a retarded twat, including my four teenage children.
“But we do want to thank him. We’ve had, I think, over three or four billion hits on this seat sale our IT team launched yesterday, which is the ‘big idiot’ seat sale.
O'Leary also quickly dismissed suggestions that Musk could take over Ryanair, as the businessman had suggested on X.
Musk and O’Leary have exchanged insults over the past week after O’Leary dismissed the idea of using Musk’s Starlink technology to provide in-flight Wi-Fi.
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Ryanair's chief executive said that while Starlink is a “terrific” system, installing it would mean putting aerials on aircrafts that would result in fuel drag at a cost of 100 to 200 million euro.
On X Musk labelled the Irishman's assessment "misinformed", triggering an exchange of heated online spats.
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