Elsewhere it's been put forward that his actual salary was $122k.

You are making my point -- we know nothing, very little, and what is known has numerous large red flags. Those flags would be obvious to most HN readers in another context, but emotions are high on this one -- it presses all of this crowd's persecution triggers.

Care to provide a citation for that?

You're painting the people involved as dishonest, which may or may not be true. But to assess that, the source of alternative information to be considered. And "elsewhere" is not a good source.

For how little we know, you seem to "know" a whole lot about what is and isn't possible. Seemingly without any actual experience in large scale corporate or government systems.

In regards to his salary, isn't it possible that the 122k is his base salary? Perhaps he gets significant bonuses, stock options, etc. to the point where he and others would round up to "around 200K." It sounds like they are just doing whatever they can to put anything he says into the tiniest amount of doubt. Why would he lie about that? 122k is still a good salary for a sys admin,and I'm sure it would still impress most of the general public.

The lack of importance of a degree in the technology sector has been discussed ad nauseum on HN long before this news even surfaced. I'm not sure why his lack of one would be considered a red flag all of a sudden.