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.
{{/usCountry}}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.
{{/usCountry}}Social media platform X has been flooded with conspiracy theories.
“Can't be a coincidence”
“Sorry but this is just too weird. It can't possibly be a coincidence that BOTH Mike Lynch and Stephen Chamberlain were killed in freak accidents within a couple of days of each other,” Professor Katherine Schofield said.
“I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist normally, but Mike Lynch and Stephen Chamberlain both disappearing/dying so close together after being declared innocent over the Autonomy sale definitely got me thinking this morning …” wrote X user Clive Ansell.
X user Mike Cosgrove also raised doubts on whether the two accidents were a coincidence. “So the minute he gets a Not Guilty verdict, and starts talking about US control over UK government and UK legal processes, Mike Lynch suddenly goes missing,” he wrote.
Bayesian, the superyacht owned by Lynch, had 22 people aboard when it capsized after being struck by a waterspout off the Italian island of Sicily. Fifteen people were rescued, one found dead, and six – including the British tech tycoon – remain missing.
(With inputs from agencies)