Elon Musk’s online riff about buying Ryanair and installing a namesake chief may have raised laughs — but EU airline ownership rules mean the idea is unlikely to ever take off.
Elon Musk has set his sights on Europe’s favourite low-cost airline, at least according to his statements on X, musing about buying it and then putting a "Ryan in charge of Ryan Air".
The world’s richest man kicked off the exchange after Ryanair’s famously mischievous social media team took a swipe at the thin-skinned tech entrepreneur during an outage on X by asking “perhaps you need Wi-Fi @elonmusk?” in a post on the Musk-owned platform.
Musk responded by floating a mock takeover in a response over the weekend, asking whether he should "buy Ryan Air and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?”
He quickly doubled down, asking “how much would it cost to buy you?” and later said it was in the airline's "destiny" to be owned by someone named Ryan.
One of the airline’s founders is Tony Ryan, an Irish businessman and former Aer Lingus executive, who played a central role in establishing the carrier in the 1980s. He passed away in 2007.
His family remains one of Ryanair’s largest shareholders, though day-to-day control has long rested with chief executive Michael O’Leary, the outspoken architect of its ultra-low-cost model.
Musk posted a poll urging users to “buy Ryan Air and restore Ryan as their rightful ruler,” before directly targeting O'Leary in a reply to another user with “Ryanair CEO is an utter idiot. Fire him."
O’Leary, for his part, did not take to X to respond since he has admitted to not using social media himself.
In statements given to UK news outlets, O'Leary called Musk a "wealthy idiot" and said he pays "no attention whatsoever to Elon Musk.”
Can he buy Ryanair?
Beyond the online antics, Musk’s bid could run into EU ownership policy hurdles.
Under EU aviation rules, airlines operating within the bloc must be at least 50% owned and effectively controlled by EU nationals.
As a US citizen, Musk would be barred from acquiring a controlling stake in Ryanair unless the airline fundamentally altered its ownership structure — a move that would jeopardise its operating licences.
That constraint has scuppered more serious ambitions in the past. When UK carriers lost their EU status after Brexit, several were forced to restructure ownership to remain compliant.
For Ryanair, which operates hundreds of routes across the bloc, EU control is non-negotiable.
None of that stopped Musk from enjoying the spectacle, with the exchange quickly racking up millions of views.
