What the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting suspect’s online activity reveals
On Monday, 26-year-old tech worker Luigi Mangione was charged as the sole suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. In an era where social media is a repository of personal narratives, the suspect's digital footprint offers a glimpse into his online life.
His social media activity spans several platforms; some posts suggest a level of self-awareness (a five-star review of The Lorax, for instance), while others appear to be typical artifacts of a digital life shared by many young Americans.
While not explicitly linked via a unified profile like LinkTree — though, the suspect had an account with a bio of "💻🤓 - 🥷🏃♂️🧘♂️🏋️ - 📚🤓 - 🦍🧠 - 🍄🧠 - 🐄👨⚖️ - ☯️" — his socials have been unearthed through public searches on Goodreads, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn.
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GoodReads
His GoodReads, confirmed by The Cut, reflects a varied reading list, including self-improvement books like Atomic Habits and The 4-Hour Work Week and more contentious selections. (And, again, The Lorax.) One of his reviews, four stars for Ted Kaczynski's Industrial Society and Its Future, drew particular attention:
"Clearly written by a mathematics prodigy. Reads like a series of lemmas on the question of 21st century quality of life. It's easy to quickly and thoughless [sic] write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies. but it's simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out. He was a violent individual — rightfully imprisoned — who maimed innocent people. While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary."
His "Want to Read" list included Infinite Jest, Atlas Shrugged, and American Prometheus, completing the trifecta of "books I don't want to see on a man's shelf." His favorites included Sapiens, a biography of Elon Musk, and The Lorax. He gave J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy three stars. Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, and Back Mechanic also appeared.
The suspect's Instagram account, @luigi.from.fiji, reportedly experienced an influx in followers after his name was released to the public, and subsequently, Meta removed the account, according to The Standard.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Mashable, but if the media reports are accurate, his last post was from 2021. He appeared to be an outdoorsy guy, with photos of him hiking around volcanoes, swimming, and drinking in bars in places like Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. His account also included references to a University of Pennsylvania fraternity.
Twitter/X
The suspect's X account was recently verified by the platform, so, as far as we know, that's just about as confirmed as you can get. His pinned post on X is from December 2022. It's a quote-post of a photo in a thread about AI and human progress, and he wrote:
"7 years ago, I gave my hs senior speech on this topic: 'Today, I will be talking to you about the future, about topics ranging from conscious artificial intelligence to human immortality. Likely, you’ll dismiss all this pretty quickly as interesting, but just science fiction…'"
He reposted posts by Andrew Huberman, talks by Peter Thiel, a summary of The Anxious Generation, and a post that compares coffee to cocaine. His tweets also touched on cellular agriculture, religion, failing birthrates in Japan, and math.
His posts don't reflect the man many leftist users on X thought he was before he was caught, but he was, instead, a 26-year-old man with the politics of one. As one Reddit user stated about the suspect's X account in a sub, "He had to be slightly revolutionary, slightly lefty, with just a sprinkling of chudiness. A touch of the chud. Chud adjacent."
On LinkedIn, the suspect presented a polished professional image detailing his academic achievements at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a Master of Science in engineering with a major in computer and information science and a Bachelor of Science in engineering, majoring in computer science with a minor in mathematics, according to CBS News. Most recently, he worked as a data engineer for TrueCar, according to his profile.
Christianna Silva is a senior culture reporter covering social platforms and the creator economy, with a focus on the intersection of social media, politics, and the economic systems that govern us. Since joining Mashable in 2021, they have reported extensively on meme creators, content moderation, and the nature of online creation under capitalism.
Before joining Mashable, they worked as an editor at NPR and MTV News, a reporter at Teen Vogue and VICE News, and as a stablehand at a mini-horse farm. You can follow her on Bluesky @christiannaj.bsky.social and Instagram @christianna_j.
