Billionaire Mike Lynch Super Yacht Sinking

Submission 256

Overview

Billionaire Mike Lynch Super Yacht Sinking refers to an August 2024 disaster in which Irish tech billionaire Mike Lynch's $18 million super yacht (named the Bayesian) sank off the coast of Sicily, Italy with Lynch, his daughter Hannah Lynch and others on board, including Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy Bloomer, going missing. The event garnered significant press coverage and caused viral reactions on social media sites like Twitter / X and Reddit, sparking discourse and memes similar to the OceanGate Titanic Submarine Incident in which British billionaire Hamish Harding passed away in an expensive vessel. The layman's reaction to both disasters indicated a humorous lack of empathy for the uber-rich.

Background

Mike Lynch is an Irish tech billionaire known for founding Autonomy — a search engine for emails and internal business documents that helps companies find information quickly. Mike Lynch has been infamously involved in American and British legal battles based on the sale of Autonomy to HP in which Lynch was accused of cooking the books to make the sale. At the time, HP valued Autonomy at $46 billion. Many have compared him to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. ^[1]

On August 19th, 2024, Mike Lynch's $18 million super yacht the Bayesian reportedly sank off the coast of Sicily, Italy when it faced an unexpected storm. Rescue teams quickly saved 15 passengers who were on board. One man was found dead. Six passengers were still missing as of August 20th, including Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah Lynch, Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy Bloomer, lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo.^[2]

Online Reactions

On August 19th, 2024, the news spread to Twitter / X across multiple viral posts. For instance, on the day, the X^[3] account of Dexerto shared the news, receiving over 36,000 likes in a day.

The tweet received viral quotes, like one from X^[4] user @Nerbit_13098 on August 19th, who referenced the 2023 OceanGate Titanic Submarine Incident when writing, "Our annual tradition of sacrificing billionaires to appease Poseidon is going well I see," earning over 606,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Similar jokes surfaced in viral replies to Dexerto's tweet, like one shared by X^[5] user @Stop_Hammerzeit on August 19th, 2024, reading, "billionaires vs. the ocean, ocean wins again for the second year in a row," gaining roughly 10,000 likes in a day (shown below, left).

On August 19th, X^[6] user @LukasMukasPukas resurfaced the Orca Whales Eating Billionaires joke in a viral quote, receiving over 85,000 likes in a day (shown below, right).

Viral reactions to the disaster also surfaced on Reddit, via a viral /r/technology^[9] thread that amassed over 3,800 upvotes and 670 comments in a day.

Mike Lynch Co-Defendant Conspiracy Theories

On August 19th, 2024, X^[7] user @KlonnyPin_Gosch tweeted a screenshot of a The Guardian^[8] article about Mike Lynch's co-defendant in the U.S. fraud trial, Stephen Chamberlain, being "fatally struck" by a car while jogging on August 17th. @KlonnyPin_Gosch noted the coincidence in a viral quote tweet, saying, "Co-defendants in a multi-billion dollar fraud trial don’t just get hit by cars and vanish in a yachting wreck off the Sicilian coast a mere 36 hrs apart… That doesn’t just happen lmfao," receiving over 15,000 likes in a day (shown below).