In the latest episode of ‘The World’s Richest Man Has Too Much Free Time,’ Elon Musk has turned his Sauron-like gaze toward the budget-friendly, soul-crushing expanse of the European aviation sector. Musk, a man who seemingly views the concept of 'leisure' as a personal insult to his own productivity metrics, recently riffed on the idea of purchasing Ryanair. Because, of course, the only thing missing from the experience of sitting in a cramped, plastic-molded seat while being upcharged for the privilege of oxygen is the distinct, Muskian flavor of chaotic mismanagement and digital posturing. The joke, which involved the revolutionary strategy of installing a namesake 'Ryan' to lead the airline, was greeted with the usual sycophantic laughter from the blue-checked gallery—those loyal foot soldiers who would cheer if the man suggested replacing all jet fuel with the concentrated essence of his own tweets.

But let’s pause to consider the target of this billionaire’s whimsy. Ryanair is already the apex predator of human degradation. It is a company that has spent decades perfecting the art of treating passengers like sentient livestock, squeezing them into metal tubes for the price of a mid-range sandwich, and then charging them double for the luggage they dared to bring along. Michael O’Leary, the current high priest of Ryanair’s austerity cult, is perhaps the only man on Earth with a skin thicker than Musk’s. O’Leary has spent his career suggesting that standing-room-only flights and pay-per-use toilets are the height of commercial innovation. To see Musk attempt to out-clown the king of budget misery is like watching a playground bully try to explain physics to a nuclear physicist: it is embarrassing, unnecessary, and ultimately hollow.

The punchline, however, isn’t in the tweet. The real joke is the physical reality of the European Union, a bureaucratic labyrinth designed specifically to turn the dreams of American tech moguls into dust. According to the EU’s Air Services Regulation—a document that contains more soul-killing jargon than a Tesla quarterly report—any airline operating within the bloc must be more than 50% owned and effectively controlled by EU member states or their nationals. Musk, despite his penchant for assuming he is a citizen of the universe, remains inconveniently American (by way of South Africa and Canada). He cannot simply swoop in and buy Ryanair like he bought a social media platform he’s spent the last two years setting on fire. The EU’s protectionist red tape is the one thing more powerful than a billionaire’s ego; it is the immovable object to Musk’s self-styled unstoppable force.

Musk’s 'Ryan' joke—the idea that he would simply find someone with the right name to act as a figurehead—is a testament to the sheer laziness of modern billionaire humor. It’s the kind of wit one expects from a man who has replaced genuine human interaction with the Pavlovian feedback loop of likes and reposts. He isn’t offering a vision; he’s offering a distraction. The notion that he could manage the logistics of a major airline when he can barely navigate the regulatory requirements of a subterranean tunnel in Las Vegas is a fantasy for the gullible. Yet, the media dutifully reports on these digital flatulations as if they contain the seeds of a profound economic shift. They do not. They are merely the sounds of a man who has run out of worlds to conquer and has settled for irritating the ones that already exist.

We are currently trapped in a pincer movement between two types of modern rot. On one side, we have the 'innovator' who believes that everything—from the stars in the sky to the seats on a budget flight—is his personal sandbox. On the other, we have the regulatory state, which preserves a veneer of order through a mountain of paperwork that ensures nothing ever truly changes. And in the middle? We have the rest of humanity, waiting in a terminal that smells like stale fries and desperation, hoping the plane isn’t delayed by a software update or a billionaire’s mood swing. The prospect of a Musk-owned Ryanair is a vision of a future where we are not just passengers, but data points in a grand, ego-driven experiment that will inevitably end with us being charged an 'X-subscription' fee to deploy our own oxygen masks. Fortunately, the bureaucrats in Brussels are too slow to let that happen, proving that sometimes, a stagnant swamp is the only thing capable of drowning a narcissist.