Mike Lynch, one of the UK’s best-known tech tycoons, has been reported missing after his luxury superyacht sank off the coast of Italy on Monday. His disappearance comes hours after Stephen Chamberlain, his co-defendant in a US fraud trial, was killed after being hit by a car while jogging. Two freak accidents in quick succession were deemed too big of a coincidence on social media, where conspiracy theories swirled thick and fast after Lynch’s disappearance.
According to Reuters, Mike Lynch spent more than a decade building Britain's biggest software company and then almost as long again fighting fraud charges related to its multi-billion pound sale. Lynch founded Autonomy from his ground-breaking research at Cambridge University in 1996. He sold it to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion 15 years later.
But in late 2012, HP stunned Wall Street and the City of London by alleging a massive accounting scandal at the business, and writing off $8.8 billion of its value. After a 12 year legal battle, Lynch was acquitted of criminal charges by a jury in San Francisco in June.
The billionaire was celebrating the verdict on his luxury superyacht off the coast of Sicily when it sank due to bad weather. News of his disappearance came hours after Stephen Chamberlain, the former VP of finance at Autonomy, died after being hit by a car. Chamberlain, 52, was hit by a car while out running on Saturday.
Social media platform X has been flooded with conspiracy theories. “Can't be a coincide.