Tuesday 20 January 2026 15:54 GMT Bookmark Support Now From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. Your support makes all the difference. Read more Elon Musk has suggested he could buy budget airline Ryanair after demanding CEO Michael O’Leary be fired in his latest online war of words. The world’s richest man claimed the Ryanair boss “needs to be fired” in a series of posts on X replying to an official airline post. Musk asked the airline, “How much would it cost to buy you?” as he relayed his fantasy about putting someone called Ryan in charge of Ryanair. “It is your destiny”, he insisted in a post on Monday. The Tesla boss later drew up a poll where he asked his 232.5 million followers whether he should “Buy Ryan Air and restore Ryan as their rightful ruler”. So far the poll has received almost 800,00 responses, 76.8 per cent responding that he should. Outspoken entrepreneur Michael O'Leary called Musk's platform X a 'cesspit' (Reuters) Fellow tech entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, best known for co-founding Reddit and marrying tennis champion Serena Williams, chimed in on the battle of the CEOs to admit “this timeline does get really entertaining at times”. The spat between Musk and O’Leary escalated on Friday when the latter said in an interview that he would pay no attention to what the Tesla CEO had to say about installing WiFi into the planes of his budget airline. “I would pay no attention whatsoever to Elon Musk,” he said on Newstalk, an Irish radio station. “He’s an idiot. Very wealthy, but he’s still an idiot.” Questions were raised about the possibility of installing SpaceX’s Starlink internet across the budget airline’s fleet, which O’Leary quickly rejected. “What Elon Musk knows about flights and drag would be zero,” he said. “We have to put an aerial antenna on top of the aircraft. It would cost us about $200-250 million dollars a year, in other words an extra dollar for every passenger we fly. “And the reality for us is we can’t afford those costs, passengers won’t pay for internet usage. If it’s free, they’ll use it, but they won’t pay €1 each to use the internet. So we’re not putting it on board.” He then called X a “cesspit”. Musk responded to the video clip to say: “Ryanair CEO is an utter idiot. Fire him.” The budget airline, known for its tongue-in-cheek social media presence, has shared a number of posts on X appearing to goad Musk over the WiFi issue. The official account replied to one post, asking “what is a propaganda you’re not falling for?” with “Wi-Fi on planes” which led Musk to call O’Leary a “r*****ed t**t who needs to be fired”. Ryanair Holdings PLC is currently worth $35.07 billion on NASDAQ. The Independent has contacted both X and Ryanair for comment. More about