Alleged CEO killer praised Elon Musk and backed Peter Thiel in social media posts
The Ivy League-educated 26-year-old appears to have supported sentiments shared by some of the world’s richest men
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The alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO shared content praising billionaire Elon Musk and venture capitalist Peter Thiel on social media.
Luigi Mangione, who was charged with murder in New York City on Monday night over the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson, has been portrayed as being “anticapitalist” by some and hailed a “ hero” by others for taking a radical stance against the American health insurance industry.
But the reality appears to be more complex, with the Ivy League-educated 26-year-old having supported sentiments shared by some of the world’s richest men, according to his X profile.
Earlier this year, Mangione shared a post on his X account of another user praising Musk for his “commitment to long-term civilization success.”
It referenced a post by Musk from March this year where he claimed he was “in a battle to the death with the anti-civilizational woke mind virus.”
One of the most recent posts on Mangione’s X’s profile was a repost of a video of Thiel, the right-wing billionaire who introduced JD Vance to Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2021.
In the video shared by Mangione, Thiel talks about a “strange phenomenon in Silicon Valley” where the “great startups seem to be run by people who suffer from a mild form of Asperger’s.”
“I think we always need to turn this fact around and view this as an indictment of our whole society,” the former PayPal CEO says in the video.
Other posts Mangione shared lamented “wokeism” in society, and he also responded to one post that claimed God had been replaced by people “worshipping at the DEI shrine, using made-up pronouns like religious mantras and firing professors for saying men can’t get pregnant.”
In response, Mangione shared a link to an article from the Daily Telegraph newspaper in the UK which railed against an anti-hate crime law introduced in Scotland in 2021.
Mangione also appears to have read books about Musk on the book review website Goodreads.
A member of the prominent Mangione family of Baltimore, the computer science graduate enjoyed a privileged upbringing, according to reports.
His family’s wealth is well-documented in the area.
By the 1990s, the Mangione family owned golf resorts, country clubs, a nursing home company, and three conservative talk radio stations, sometimes sparring with city and county officials as the family patriarch, Nick Mangione, expanded his business empire.
Nick Mangione died in 2008, leaving behind 37 grandchildren, including Luigi Mangione. The family did well enough that they were able to establish a family philanthropic foundation, which donated to the Greater Baltimore Medical Center and numerous other hospitals and healthcare institutions, as well as the Baltimore Opera Company and the Walters Art Museum.
Greater Baltimore Medical Center even has a hospital ward named after the Mangiones, The Baltimore Banner reported.