In a display of self-awareness so rare it practically qualifies as a miracle, Elon Musk and Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary have spent the last few days engaged in a public exchange of the only word that accurately describes both of them: “idiot.” It is a rare moment of honesty in the corporate world, a brief flickering of truth amidst the smog of carbon emissions and ketamine-fueled tweets. Usually, men of this tax bracket hire entire departments of PR ghouls to ensure they sound like visionary architects of the future. Instead, we are treated to the spectacle of two middle-aged narcissists pointing at one another in a digital playground, each correctly identifying the other’s intellectual deficiency while remaining blissfully blind to their own.

Let’s begin with Michael O’Leary, a man whose primary contribution to human civilization is proving that people will willingly submit to being treated like sentient luggage if you charge them three dollars less than the competition. O’Leary, the chieftain of the flying sardine tin known as Ryanair, took aim at Musk’s increasingly erratic management of X—the platform formerly known as Twitter and currently known as a digital dumpster fire. O’Leary’s critique was, predictably, a masterclass in the pot calling the kettle black. He dismissed Musk as an “idiot” for his handling of the site, apparently forgetting that his own business model involves charging passengers for the privilege of using a toilet and contemplating a future where people stand during flights like livestock in transit. It takes a specific kind of audacity for a man who has built an empire on the degradation of the traveler to lecture anyone on the optics of public management.

Musk, a man who views himself as a cross between Tony Stark and a misunderstood god-king, predictably fired back with the same epithet. For Musk, everyone who doesn’t worship at the altar of his “free speech” absolutism—which strangely looks a lot like “my friends’ speech” absolutism—is a moron. The irony here is thick enough to clog a Falcon 9 engine. Musk’s descent into the fever dreams of the far-right and his obsession with “woke mind viruses” has turned a once-prominent town square into a megaphone for bots and conspiracy theorists. He complains about O’Leary’s intelligence while overseeing a platform that has lost more value than a used Tesla with a bricked battery. It is a collision of two egos that have grown so large they have developed their own gravitational fields, pulling in the attention of a public that should, quite frankly, know better.

What we are witnessing is not a clash of titans, but a race to the bottom of the human condition. On one side, we have the Right-wing’s favorite billionaire, a man who pretends to be a rugged individualist while his companies survive on the very government subsidies he claims to despise. On the other, we have the quintessential European corporate shark, a man who has spent decades mocking the very customers who keep him in private jets. They are two sides of the same debased coin. They both represent the ultimate triumph of the “disruptor” era: a period of history where we decided that as long as you make enough money, you are allowed to be a petulant child in public. O’Leary’s Ryanair treats the working class like a resource to be mined, while Musk’s X treats the global discourse like a personal toy to be broken.

The tragedy of this spat is that they are both right. Musk is an idiot for thinking that his wealth makes him a philosopher-king; O’Leary is an idiot for thinking his ability to cut costs makes him a moral authority on corporate governance. Their mutual loathing is the only thing about them that feels authentic. It is the reflexive snarl of two predators who realize the jungle isn't big enough for both their egos. O’Leary’s brand of “honesty” has always been a calculated marketing ploy—a way to deflect from the fact that his airline is a miserable experience by pretending he’s “one of the lads” who tells it like it is. Musk’s brand of “freedom” is equally fraudulent—a thin veneer over a desperate need for validation from the darkest corners of the internet.

As they trade insults, the rest of us are left to ponder the hopelessness of a world where these are the men at the helm of our infrastructure. We rely on one to transport us across continents and the other to provide the digital infrastructure for our communication. It is a grim realization that the machinery of modern life is controlled by people who would be kicked out of a moderately civilized pub for being too annoying. There is no hero in this story, only two billionaires screaming at their own reflections. They are the inevitable end-product of a culture that prioritizes profit over dignity and “engagement” over substance. If this is the best the elite can offer—a schoolyard spat between a rocket man and a bus driver with wings—then perhaps the heat death of the universe can’t come soon enough. At least in the void, we won't have to listen to them call each other names while they pick our pockets.