Chapter 606: Who Was Liam Scott Truly?
The Bloomberg article hit LucidNet a few minutes after the breaking news was aired, and the platform processed it for approximately four seconds before losing its mind completely.
"THAT’S HIM. That’s the guy from the LAX video. The impossible Mercedes. The A380. People spent a week arguing whether the photos were AI-generated and Bloomberg just told us he’s worth $735 BILLION."
Someone replied: "I need everyone to remember that when that LAX video went viral, one of the top post was ’probably just some influencer renting stuff for content.’ That post currently has 2.3 million likes. I would like to find that person."
"That person is probably in witness protection from their own take."
"Okay I need to say something," a user posted. "I am also eighteen years old. I have been eighteen for four months. In those four months I have learned how to do laundry without turning everything pink and I once parallel parked on the first try. He has 3% of Nvidia. We are the same age. I need someone to explain what I am doing wrong."
Someone replied: "You are doing nothing wrong. The system is simply not designed for whatever he is doing."
"What IS he doing though."
"Bloomberg doesn’t know. I don’t know. Nobody knows. That’s the article. That’s the whole article."
"The Fabergé egg," a user posted. "I need to talk about the Fabergé egg. Bloomberg listed his assets one by one — Manhattan penthouse, Holmby Hills mansion, yacht, A380 — and then just casually dropped Fabergé egg at the end like it was an afterthought. This man looked at a Fabergé egg and thought yes. That belongs with my things. He is eighteen."
Someone replied: "I am twenty-seven. The most decorative thing I own is a succulent I bought for $4 that is currently dying despite requiring almost no care. He has a Fabergé egg."
"How is the succulent doing."
"Not well. I think it’s judging me."
"It most definitely read the Bloomberg article."
***
The cars section of the article, broke something in people.
"The Vision Mercedes-Maybach concept car," a user posted. "Not a production car. A concept car. Something Mercedes showed at an event to demonstrate what was theoretically possible and then explicitly said would never, under any circumstances, be manufactured. They said this multiple times. In multiple years. Never. He has one."
Someone replied: "Mercedes said never. He said that’s interesting."
Another: "The McLaren is actually worse. The P1 LM has fewer than six units on Earth. He has a variant beyond that. A designation that doesn’t exist in any public record. A car so exclusive it doesn’t officially exist. It just lives in his garage in Los Angeles being impossible."
"I drive a 2009 Toyota Corolla with 140,000 miles and a check engine light that has been on for three years. I have named the check engine light Gerald. Gerald and I have been through a lot together. He has two cars that manufacturers have publicly stated cannot exist."
"Gerald deserves better."
"Gerald is doing his best."
"Let’s talk about the portfolio," a user posted, "because I think people are glazing over the most insane part. He didn’t diversify. He concentrated. 3% of Nvidia. 3% of Microsoft. 3% of Broadcom. 3% of TSMC. These are enormous, deliberate, concentrated bets on specific sectors held with full conviction. You don’t accidentally end up with 3% of Nvidia. You decide to own 3% of Nvidia."
Someone replied: "I bought $150 of a random stock because someone on the internet said it was going to the moon. It did not go to the moon. It went to a place considerably further south than the moon."
Another: "The sectors are what I can’t stop thinking about. Technology infrastructure and life sciences. The two sectors Nova Technologies is currently dismantling from a lunar base. He holds 3% of pharmaceutical giants at the exact moment a clinical trial on the moon is showing that medical nanites can regrow limbs. Either the worst investment timing in history or—"
"Or?"
"Or???"
The thread sat on that word for a long moment before someone posted:
"Aliens."
It received 340,000 likes in eleven minutes.
"At this point aliens is genuinely the third most plausible explanation and I say that as someone with a graduate degree."
"What are the first two."
"I don’t know. That’s why aliens is third."
"OKAY," a user posted in capital letters. "I need everyone to look at something."
"Nova Technologies launches seven months ago. It has no named founder, no named owner and no executive team in any public filing. The company simply exists with technology nobody can explain and a lunar base nobody knew about."
"Liam Scott appears publicly seven months ago. There’s no documented origin for his $735 billion. The money simply exists with no source anyone can find."
"Same timeline. Same sectors. Same pattern of everything being real and nothing being explained."
"I’m not saying anything. I’m just reading the calendar out loud."
The reply thread exploded.
"BRO."
"WAIT."
"NO."
"HOLD ON! I THINK HE’S TRYING TO TELL US SOMETHING!!!"
"Someone get Bloomberg back on the phone."
"Bloomberg started this and I don’t think they understood what they were starting."
Another user posted: "Let me list the facts cleanly.
1. Unknown 18-year-old appears with two impossible vehicles.
2. Quietly holds $735B in verified assets with no documented source.
3. Seven months later Nova Technologies exists.
4. Nova Technologies has no named owner.
5. Nova Technologies has technology that cannot be explained by any known development timeline.
6. Nova Technologies is based on the moon.
7. Nobody knew about the moon base.
8. Nobody knows where Liam Scott’s money came from.
9. Nobody knows who owns Nova Technologies.
I’m just going to leave this here."
The post got four million views in the first thirty minutes.
"Bro is cooking."
"Let him cook."
"He’s already cooked. The food is on the table. We’re just not ready to eat it."
"Can we also acknowledge," a user posted, "that Bloomberg spent an entire article describing an 18-year-old with $735 billion and the closest they got to an explanation was ’the origin of the capital is not present in any public record we could locate.’ That’s Bloomberg. One of the most resourced financial publications on Earth. Their conclusion was essentially: we checked everything and he just has it. Good luck."
Someone replied: "That’s the most unsatisfying and terrifying sentence in journalism this year."
Another: "I’ve read the article four times. Every time I finish it I feel like I understand less than when I started. Bloomberg has made me dumber about money."
"Same. I went in thinking I understood wealth. I came out understanding nothing."
"The yacht is named Mia," a user posted. "He named his half-billion dollar yacht Mia. That’s someone’s name. He named his yacht after a person. He is eighteen. I don’t own anything valuable enough to name."
Someone replied: "I named my car."
"What did you name it."
"Gerald."
"Wait — are you the Corolla person."
"Gerald and I have been through a lot."
***
The thread that spread furthest wasn’t about the money or the conspiracy or the cars.
It was a user who posted at the end of the first hour, after reading everything, and wrote:
"Okay so in the past seven months I have seen two beyond impossible devices, watched live footage of someone walking on Mars, touch the asteroids in the Asteroid Belt, fly into Jupiter with a space shuttle and come back out, do an insane manual slingshot around Saturn with that same space shuttle turned off completely, and showed us what Earth looks like from just beyond the Oort cloud.
I have watched a clinical trial on the moon show a nine-year-old girl walk for the first time. I found out that a device exists that gives you back the hours you spend sleeping. I watched a space shuttle land at an international airport like it was an Uber.
And now I’m reading that an 18-year-old with no documented origin story is the second richest person on Earth and may secretly own all of it. I really shouldn’t be surprised anymore but everything is happening so fast for me to get used to any of them. It’s like the world just started moving way faster than before.
But with all things said and done, I have a 9 AM meeting tomorrow about Q3 content calendar. I am going to sit in that meeting and someone is going to ask me about engagement metrics, and I am going to answer them. And the whole time I am going to be thinking about the Fabergé egg. Fuck! 😭😭😭"
The reply thread filled slowly.
"I have a 10 AM budget review."
"Mine’s at 8:30 and I already know I haven’t prepared enough."
"I have to present slides tomorrow. Actual slides. About actual quarterly numbers. After reading this article. I made the slides before the article dropped and now they look insane to me. The numbers on them are real numbers. Real, normal, human-scale numbers. I don’t know if I can do it."
"You can do it."
"How."
"I don’t know. We’re all going to have to do it. That’s just where we are now. The world is doing whatever this is and we still have meetings."
Someone posted simply: "I just want to know who he is."
It got more likes than anything else in the thread.
Because that was the question underneath all of it. Underneath the money and the cars and the portfolio and the timeline and the theory that was spreading faster than anyone could track.
Who was Liam Scott, truly?, was the question on everyone’s mind.
And the fact that nobody knew was somehow the most interesting thing that had happened all week.
In a week that had already contained quite a lot.
