Elon Musk wants to buy Ryanair, replace its CEO with someone named Ryan. Internet offers hilarious suggestions

Elon Musk jokes about buying Ryanair. (Image: @engineers_feed/@pdosullivan/X)

Elon Musk’s online spats are nothing new, but his latest clash with Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has taken the internet by storm. What began as a disagreement over in-flight Wi-Fi quickly spiralled into talk of a takeover and sarcastic jabs.

After a recent outage on X (formerly Twitter) caused frustration among users in the US. Many people reported problems with posting, loading feeds and accessing content. The disruption was tracked by Downdetector, which showed sharp spikes in complaints, and was reported by outlets including the New York Post.

Ryanair took a swipe at  Musk during the outage. Responding to the chaos on X, the airline mocked the tech billionaire by posting, “Perhaps you need Wi-Fi, @elonmusk?”

Elon Musk fired back by writing, “Should I buy Ryanair and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?” The tongue-in-cheek comment instantly went viral, triggering a wave of memes, jokes and speculative replies from netizens.

One user tagged Musk’s AI chatbot and asked, “@grok what’s Ryanair’s market cap, how much would it cost for a hostile takeover?” Another followed up with, “@grok who are the top 5 Ryan’s that would be suitable for this job?”

The humour escalated when a netizen shared an AI-generated image of Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds dressed as a corporate executive besides Musk. Alongside the image, the user wrote, “You have the opportunity to do something hilarious.”

You have the opportunity to do something hilarious pic.twitter.com/Xu5JBbP133

— Tenacious (@TenaciousBit) January 17, 2026

Even users named Ryan joined the fun. One person, simply identifying himself as Ryan, wrote, “Make me CEO and I’ll give all Ryan’s a discount.”

There is an ongoing dispute between Elon Musk and Ryanair’s CEO, Michael O’Leary.

Earlier, O’Leary publicly dismissed both Musk and the idea of installing Starlink on Ryanair flights. Speaking on the radio show Newstalk, O’Leary did not hold back. He said, “I would pay no attention whatsoever to Elon Musk. He’s an idiot, very wealthy, but he’s still an idiot.”

In comments reported by Reuters, O’Leary explained the reasoning behind the decision. He said, “You need to put an antenna on the fuselage; it comes with a 2% fuel penalty because of the weight and drag. We don't think our passengers are willing to pay for WiFi for an average 1-hour flight.” According to Ryanair, the added fuel costs would outweigh any benefits, especially given the airline’s focus on short-haul routes.

Musk, however, disagreed with that assessment. Responding on X, he argued that connectivity is becoming an expectation rather than a luxury. In a post Musk wrote, “They [Ryanair] will lose customers to airlines that do have internet.”