Elon Musk has sparked fresh social media chatter after publishing a poll asking X users whether he should buy Ryanair, a move that reminded many of the similar gesture he made before buying X (formerly Twitter). Musk’s new post came amid the ongoing public feud between him and the airline. Earlier, he clashed with Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, and both the world’s richest man and Europe’s most outspoken airline boss called each other “idiot” over the Starlink dispute.
What did Elon Musk ask in the poll?
In a recent series of posts, Elon Musk asked, “How much would it cost to buy you?” when the low-cost airline tweeted that a propaganda it wasn’t falling for was Wi-Fi on planes.
Musk reacted with the tweet asking the price of the airline company, adding, “I really want to put a Ryan in charge of Ryan Air. It is your destiny.”
Soon after, he published a poll which read “Buy Ryan Air and restore Ryan as their rightful ruler.” He gave two options: “F yes” and “No”.
Till now, it has received over 500,000 votes and the poll closes in a little over 17 hours.
Who is winning?
At the time of writing this article, while 78% voted “F Yes”, 22% said “No”.
Elon Musk vs Ryanair controversy explained:
The feud started when Ryanair refused to invest in Elon Musk’s Starlink. The airline CEO dismissed the idea of in-flight Internet, citing that it would cost the low-budget, short-haul airline too much.
“We don’t think our passengers are willing to pay for WiFi for an average one-hour flight,” O’Leary told Reuters.
The clash between the two burst out in the open when, during an interview with Ireland’s Newstalk, O’Leary called Musk “misinformed,” adding, asking people to “pay no attention whatsoever to Elon Musk.”
“He’s an idiot — very wealthy, but still an idiot,” O’Leary continued. Musk responded, “Ryanair CEO is an utter idiot. Fire him.”
Ryanair fired back during a recent X outage, tweeting, “Perhaps you need Wi-Fi @elonmusk?” Soon after Musk wrote, “Should I buy Ryan Air and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?”
Ryanair CEO said that installing Starlink in their aircraft would increase drag and also fuel consumption. He said that the annual cost of installing an aerial antenna to access Starlink satellites would be $200 million-$250 million. Elon Musk, however, disputed those figures.