UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was in Midtown Manhattan early Wednesday morning as he walked to the New York Hilton Midtown to attend the company's annual investor conference. He was shot and died. According to emerging media reports, Thompson was shot from about 20 feet away by a masked man who appeared to be waiting for him, before fleeing on a bicycle.
Law enforcement continued to search the area in the aftermath of the shooting. Police are offering $10,000 to anyone with information about the shooting, according to the New York Times.
Mr. Thompson, 50, was appointed CEO of United Healthcare, the largest health insurance company in the United States, in April 2021 after a long career with the company since joining the company in early 2004 as director of corporate development.
United Healthcare disclosed in October that one of its subsidiaries, Change Healthcare, suffered a ransomware attack in February that resulted in more than 100 million individuals having their personal medical information stolen. The cyberattack caused an unprecedented, months-long outage and widespread disruption across the U.S. healthcare industry.