Chapter 1: What sparked Elon Musk's interest in buying Ryanair?
Will Elon Musk buy Europe's biggest budget airline? Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. I'm William Lee Adams. Good morning. tech billionaire Elon Musk has picked another fight. This time it's with Michael O'Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, Europe's largest airline based on passenger numbers.
Mr. O'Leary said that Ryanair wouldn't be offering Mr. Musk's Starlink satellite services on the airline's planes. Then he called Elon Musk an idiot. Responding on his ex-platform, Mr. Musk floated the idea of buying Ryanair himself. In the last few minutes, Mr. O'Leary has been speaking at a press conference in the Irish capital, Dublin.
There would clearly be a demand for Wi-Fi on board our aircraft if it was free. You know, other airlines, mainly long-haul carriers like Aer Lingus, like Lufthansa and others, are talking about installing Wi-Fi on board as a facility and giving it out for free. But their average fares, particularly on long-haul, are over €1,000. Our average fares are €45.
So what's this row really about? With me in the studio is the BBC's international business correspondent, Theo Leggett. Theo, hi. Hi. So why doesn't the Ryanair boss want to use Starlink?
OK, so Michael O'Leary says he doesn't want to use Starlink, which is an internet system. On the grounds that it would be too costly because it would require his planes to be fitted with external antennas, which he says would cause aerodynamic drag on the planes, increase his fuel bills to a level that would not be economically viable.
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Chapter 2: Why did Michael O'Leary refuse to use Starlink services?
And do we have any numbers with that? He says it would entail about a 2% increase in drag and would cost about a euro per passenger, which would ultimately increase his fuel bill by about 250 million euros a year. And he says that's not sustainable.
Mr. Musk has floated the idea of buying the airline. How realistic is that threat?
Yeah, he's floated that one a few times. And he's actually said he could replace Mr. O'Leary with somebody who's actually called Ryan. I mean, that's the level that this conversation has descended to, really. But he'd faced two obstacles. So first of all, he'd have to raise some $44 billion. which even for the world's richest man is a lot of ready cash.
And then, crucially, there are also ownership rules to consider. So European airlines have the right to fly around Europe pretty much without restriction, provided their majority owned by nationals of the EU. And Mr. Musk, as a South African-American Canadian, clearly is not.
And Theo, some really strong words exchanged there.
Yeah.
Yeah, so, I mean, the strong words really started when Michael O'Leary did an interview on an Irish radio station in which he referred to Elon Musk as a very wealthy idiot. And, you know, the response to that was Elon Musk saying that Michael O'Leary should be sacked. Ryanair then responded by launching what it calls a big idiot seat sale featuring a caricature of Elon Musk.
So there's a level of humor in all of this, but it's pretty low humor as well.
Theo, we will leave it there. Thanks for joining us on Marketplace. It's been a pleasure. All right, let's do the numbers. European markets are down again after U.S. threats to acquire Greenland kept investors on edge ahead of President Donald Trump's Davos speech later. But in South Korea, shares in Hyundai Motor Company surged 15% amid optimism over its robotics initiatives.
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Chapter 3: How much would Starlink impact Ryanair's operational costs?
On behalf of the entire team, thanks for listening.