CEO Andy Byron’s “ColdplayGate” affair scandal shocks the world
CEO’s affair scandal suddenly exposed
Famous for his private lifestyle,
– CEO of technology company Astronomer – lives with his wife Megan Kerrigan Byron and two children in New York.
However, that seemingly peaceful life took a different turn after a viral video captured the moment Mr. Byron was intimate with HR manager Kristin Cabot at a Coldplay concert in Boston on the evening of July 16 (local time), starting a scandal dubbed
The video that exposed the tech billionaire’s affair
Specifically, at the concert on July 16, 2025, during the “Kiss Cam” presentation, the camera captured the moment
Andy Byron hugged Kristin Cabot
, who had just joined Astronomer in late 2024.
When the image was projected onto the big screen, both looked embarrassed, with Byron looking down and Cabot quickly covering his face with his hands. The video was quickly shared widely on platforms like TikTok and X, attracting
tens of millions of views
and a series of comments about suspicions of “office adultery” and “inappropriate relationships at work”.
Global social network explosion
While neither of them have confirmed or denied their relationship beyond the limits of colleagues, the CEO’s wife’s reaction shows the far-reaching impact of the incident.
According to Newsweek, after the viral video with more than
20 million views
on TikTok,
Ms. Megan Kerrigan Byron received a series of supportive messages on Facebook. However, within just
12 hours, she
removed the last name “Byron” from her display name, and then
locked her personal Facebook account.
As for the company, Astronomer has yet to make any official response to the incident. Andy Byron has temporarily locked or deleted his personal LinkedIn account, while netizens continue to search for old videos and leave a series of comments alluding to the scandal.
The spread of the incident did not stop at gossip. Byron became the most searched keyword on Google within 24 hours, with more than 2 million searches.
Even on Polymarket, a decentralized betting platform, more than $35,000 was bet on Byron retaining his CEO position, while another $30,000 was poured into a market predicting his marital status .
Many bettors are speculating on Byron’s departure as CEO of the company.
Not only netizens, the HR industry also spoke up. HR expert Kate Walker shared with Business Insider: “It’s not appropriate to make an office romance public with a Kiss Cam at a Coldplay concert, especially if you’re the CEO and the other person is the head of HR.”
Meanwhile, Ry Walker – Astronomer’s founding CEO from 2015 to 2022 – has distanced himself from the incident in a sarcastic post on X: “For those asking, I am no longer involved with the company. Yes, I co-founded and was CEO, but I stepped down from the team and board in 2022. I have no knowledge of ColdplayGate.”
Notably, Ryan Petersen – founder of Flexport – even joked that the board of directors should give Byron a raise for “free promotion” for the company.
Elon Musk’s response to the incident
The surprise is Elon Musk, who is known for regularly commenting on hot topics on X, left a smiley face icon right under the comment section of the post about the incident.
This seemingly simple action immediately attracted attention, as an indirect confirmation that the Coldplay “Kiss Cam” incident had gone beyond the internal scale, becoming part of global online culture.
Who is Andy Byron?
Astronomer is a technology company that specializes in providing data optimization and management products. In May 2025, the company completed a Series D funding round with a valuation of $775 million, according to PitchBook.
And Andy Byron was appointed CEO in July 2023, and last year he announced the hiring of Kristin Cabot as head of human resources, praising her “extensive experience in people management, team engagement and people strategy development.”
Andy Byron
Under Andy Byron’s leadership, Astronomer has grown rapidly, especially with its flagship product Astro, which helps companies easily build, monitor, and optimize data processing chains in the era of DataOps.
Prior to Astronomer, Andy served as President and Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Lacework Inc., a cloud cybersecurity company. He is a strategic leader with experience building teams and driving strong growth in Silicon Valley technology companies.
It’s unclear whether Astronomer has an internal policy on workplace relationships. But given what’s happening, “ColdplayGate” has officially gone beyond a random Kiss Cam moment and become one of the fastest-spreading workplace scandals in the tech world this year.
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