A masked gunman fatally shot Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare — one of the nation’s largest health insurers — outside a Manhattan hotel where the company was holding its investor conference on Wednesday, Dec. 4. Police are still searching for the gunman.
A day after the shooting, a TikTok went viral claiming UnitedHealthcare posted a LinkedIn job listing for a new CEO within 24 hours of Thompson’s death.
The job listing that appears in the video advertises a full-time, remote position based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, with an annual salary range of $300,000 to $450,000. Another viral TikTok claimed the company also posted the same job listing on Indeed.
Many commenters on the viral TikToks questioned whether UnitedHealthcare actually posted a job listing for a new CEO directly following the fatal shooting.
THE QUESTION
Did UnitedHealthcare post a job listing for a new CEO the day after Brian Thompson’s death?
THE SOURCES
- UnitedHealthcare
- UnitedHealth Group’s 2024 proxy statement
- Independent VERIFY searches of job openings on UnitedHealthcare’s LinkedIn, Indeed and official careers website
- Peter Deragon, a managing director at Stanton Chase in Los Angeles
- Liz Ryan, the CEO and founder of Human Workplace, a career coaching and consulting firm
THE ANSWER
No, UnitedHealthcare did not post a job listing for a new CEO the day after Brian Thompson’s death.
WHAT WE FOUND
UnitedHealthcare did not post a job listing for a new CEO shortly the day after Brian Thompson was fatally shot in New York on Dec. 4, like two viral TikToks claimed.
UnitedHealthcare is the largest subsidiary of the Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group. Thompson worked at UnitedHealth Group for 20 years. In April 2021, he was named UnitedHealthcare’s CEO after running the company’s Medicare and retirement business.
On Dec. 6, VERIFY searched the most recent job listings posted on UnitedHealthcare’s LinkedIn and Indeed profiles and found that the company had not posted an ad for a new CEO within hours of Thompson’s death. We also found that the job was not listed on UnitedHealth Group’s official careers website.
The salary range that appears in the viral TikTok’s fake job listing is also significantly lower than Thompson’s actual salary.
In 2023, Thompson’s annual pay package, including salary, bonus and stock options awards, was $10.2 million, making him one of the company’s highest-paid executives, according to UnitedHealth Group’s 2024 proxy statement.
Peter Deragon, a managing director at Stanton Chase, a global executive search and leadership consulting firm, says most companies don’t hire their CEOs through LinkedIn, Indeed or other online job boards.
“Most C-suite executives don’t ‘hunt’ for a job in the traditional sense of the word. They aren’t found scouring job boards or parsing over the latest employment listings,” Deragon wrote in a blog post from January 2023.
“Instead, C-suite professionals willing to shift between employers enter a different process. They position themselves favorably and are ‘courted’ by companies in need of quality leadership,” he added.
Liz Ryan, the CEO and founder of Human Workplace, a career coaching and consulting firm, agrees.
“Higher-level executives don’t get new jobs by filling out online applications and uploading their resumes,” Ryan wrote in November 2023. “They don’t job hunt that way because they’d never get hired if they did.”
VERIFY reached out to UnitedHealthcare for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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