Elon Musk’s latest exchange on X with a budget airline company had the appearance of a joke, yet the world’s richest man has a history of turning seemingly unserious proposals into massive corporate purchases.

Specifically, after Ryanair (RYAAY) made a post aimed at generating engagement on the social media platform on January 19, the South African-Canadian-American businessman found his way into the comments, asking ‘how much would it cost to buy you (Ryanair)?’

At face value, the proposal appears unlikely to be more than a gag since Musk followed up by commenting that his main motivation is putting a man named Ryan at the helm of the budget airline.

Why Musk might go through with the Ryanair acquisition

Still, the world’s richest man and possibly humanity’s first trillionaire has a history of surprising corporate acquisitions. For example, Elon Musk’s acquisition of X – then known as Twitter – proved a massively expensive endeavor and one that he seemingly attempted to get out of before being forced to fork out more than $40 billion.

Ryanair investors certainly appear to have taken notice, considering the company’s stock ended its 2026 6.49% decline in the pre-market of January 20 with a 1.79% rally. Indeed, the RYAAY shares closed at $68.28 on January 16 and are changing hands at $69.50 at press time.

Why Elon Musk is unlikely to buy Ryanair

Lastly, the biggest argument against Elon Musk turning the apparent joke into a serious proposal is the likely price tag. At press time on January 20, Ryanair’s market capitalization stood at $35.84 billion, according to data Finbold retrieved from CompaniesMarketCap.

Indeed, even though Musk probably would not have to buy every RYAAY share in existence, the cost would still likely be measured in tens of billions of dollars. Given the strain the purchase of X put on the finances of the world’s richest man, it is unlikely he would see expanding his already sprawling business empire into air travel as worthwhile.

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