Musk asked followers about the acquisition of Ryanair amid disagreements with the leader.

Elon Musk for the second time voiced his opinion about the acquisition of the airline Ryanair after a conflict with its executive director Michael O’Leary. A billionaire arranged a vote in X regarding the takeover of a company with a market value of about 30 billion euros.

The online spat between Elon Musk and Ryanair Holdings Plc has continued for a second week, and the world’s richest man has once again voiced his thoughts on buying the airline after clashing with its chairman, Bloomberg reports. UNN.

Details On Monday, Musk posted a poll on X asking if he should buy Ryanair and “bring Ryan back as their rightful owner.” Earlier in the day, he responded to a low-cost carrier’s post asking how much it would cost to buy them and renewed his push to fire Michael O’Leary, the longtime chief executive and public figure of the airline, which was co-founded by the late Tony Ryan in 1984.

The conflict between the two straight leaders flared up last week after O’Leary said he did not plan to install SpaceX Starlink internet on the budget airline’s entire fleet because of fuel costs caused by the weight and drag of a roof-mounted antenna. Subsequently, Musk called O’Leary incompetent, who, in turn, called the billionaire an “idiot.”

Ryanair shares rose 2.3% on Tuesday before falling again. Ryanair has a market capitalization of about 30 billion euros ($35 billion), three times that of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, the region’s largest airline group.

O’Leary, who over several decades turned the company into the largest budget carrier in the region, is one of the airline’s ten largest shareholders. He recently received a generous bonus package for achieving certain performance metrics with the stock up 55% last year.

The dispute comes as Musk’s AI chatbot Grok has come under scrutiny after reports it was used to create sexualized images of people without their consent in X. Ireland will use its presidency of the European Union later this year to address the abuse of AI images in European law, Irish media reported on Monday.

Musk’s message “How much will it cost to buy you?”, addressed to Ryanair, was reminiscent of a fatal exchange of messages on social networks in 2017, the newspaper writes.

After he wrote in December of that year that he liked Twitter Inc., a journalist jokingly suggested that he buy the company. “How much does it cost?” Musk answered.

He returned to that correspondence nearly five years later, posting an upside-down smiley a few days after making a buyout offer without prior approval.

EU rules require that a controlling stake in a European airline be owned and controlled by EU citizens. Last year, Ryanair’s board of directors decided to allow non-EU citizens to buy ordinary shares traded on Euronext Dublin and depositary shares on Nasdaq.

According to information on Ryanair’s website, a company may be excluded from certain share tracking indices if there are concerns about a breach of these ownership restrictions.

Musk is known for his open criticism of executives and companies, especially on social media. During the acquisition process of Twitter, now known as X, he often expressed his displeasure with the company’s performance and the decisions made by its then-CEO. Ultimately, Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion and fired its staff, including top executives.

In the past, Musk has polled his followers on a variety of issues ranging from whether Tesla Inc. accepting Dogecoin as payment for his electric cars, and ending with whether he should sell some of his stake in the automaker. He continued to sell shares in the company at the end of 2021.

The following year, after buying a stake in then-Twitter, he asked users if they wanted a button to edit their tweets, asked if the company should turn its San Francisco headquarters into a homeless shelter, and asked for opinions on whether Twitter should bring back the short-form video service Vine.

Months after questioning whether he should step down as company chief, Musk hired Linda Yaccarino to replace him as CEO in May 2023.

Acquiring an airline is not an easy task. British Airways owner IAG SA scrapped plans to buy Spanish carrier Air Europa in 2024 over competition concerns, while Spirit Aviation Holdings Inc. and Frontier Group Holdings encountered difficulties during the merger attempt, the newspaper writes.