Who is Taylor Lorenz? Journalist's alleged post about "hatred toward insurance company CEOs" goes viral after Brian Thompson's murder

Following the death of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare Group, Taylor Lorenz, a journalist from California, allegedly shared an insensitive post about the incident on social media. Lorenz allegedly uploaded the post on her BlueSky account, which is unverified at the moment.

The post, alongside a sensitive comment she made about it - was later screenshotted and posted by another netizen with the username @MidnightMitch.

One of the three screenshots posted by the user contained a comment allegedly made by Lorenz, which said:

"People have very justified hatred toward insurance company CEOs because these executives are responsible for an unfathomable amount of death and suffering.

@MidnightMitch captioned the post:

"Has Taylor Lorenz lost her mind?"

The post has since gone viral on X, amassing over 840K views, 300 re-shares, and 200 comments.

Taylor Lorenz has had a long career in journalism and has worked in well-reported digital magazines and newspapers, including PEOPLE Magazine, Daily Mail News, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. She currently works as an independent journalist with a Substack newsletter and a podcast with Vox Media.

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Taylor Lorenz started her career as a social media strategist

According to Lorenz's LinkedIn page, Taylor Lorenz graduated from the Unversity of Colorado-Boulder, with Political Science as her major.

The timeline of her graduation is not known, but in 2019, she became an affiliate at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Lorenz was also a Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard, with her research there focusing on Instagram and consumption of news.

Having worked as a blogger and digital strategist part-time, Taylor Lorenz joined Dentsu - an advertising agency in New York - as a social media strategist. After working with Denstu for a year, Lorenz switched jobs, moving to Daily Mail News, where she became the Global Head of Social Media and Emerging Platforms.

In 2014, Taylor quit her full-time role at Daily Mail and started offering services of digital strategy and audience development consultation to the news outlet in a freelance capacity.

In 2015, Lorenz worked part-time as a freelance social media director of Refinery29 for three months, before joining PEOPLE Magazine. At PEOPLE, Taylor worked as a senior editor and executive producer.

Taylor Lorenz's first job as a technology reporter came in November 2017, when she joined The Daily Beast. Other media outlets where Lorenz has worked as a technology reporter include The Atlantic and The New York Times.

In October 2024, Lorenz announced on her X handle that she was going independent by launching UserMag - her own media outlet on Substack.

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Taylor Lorenz's post encouraged calling out the "people in power"

The first post allegedly shared by Lorenz was a celebratory picture with stars, party caps, and balloons, and this message written over them: "CEO Down". The post's caption read:

"Woke up to see this spammed in my group chats"

The picture was followed by another one - this time, a screenshot captured from another user's post, where the message written over the same picture was:

"Healthcare executive Down."

In a third screenshot posted by @MidnightMitch was a comment posted from Taylor Lorenz's alleged account, which read:

"As someone against death and suffering, I think it's good to call out this broken system and the people in power who enable it."

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The gunman who shot Brian Thompson on Wednesday is still on the loose, with the New York Police working to identify and capture him as an investigation into the shooting incident is currently underway. Thompson was in New York City to attend an investor's conference at the Hilton Midtown Hotel yesterday.