• Jobs in management consulting can be difficult to land, especially at prestigious firms.
• Management Consulted offers coaching from former MBB consultants and online courses.
• The COO said case interview prep and keeping options open can help aspiring consultants break in.

Jobs in management consulting can be notoriously difficult to land, especially for job seekers hoping to join a prestigious MBB firm — McKinsey, Bain, or BCG.

That's where career coaches come in.

Some aspiring management consultants call in the professionals to walk them through every phase of the application process, from choosing which firms to apply to, submitting their resume and cover letter, and prepping for case study interviews.

Management Consulted, founded in 2008, has worked with more than 15,000 candidates and helped them land jobs at over 170 different firms, according to Namaan Mian, chief operating officer. In addition to online curriculums, the company has around 25 coaches, all of whom formerly worked at an MBB firm.

A top coaching package offered by Management Consulted costs $4,500 and is aimed at those who are at least six months away from actually submitting job applications to firms. The package includes 20 hours of 1:1 sessions with coaches, edits on your resume and cover letter, and access to their online classes.

According to Management Consulted, 80% of their premium clients get at least one job offer from a consulting firm.

For anyone interested in getting into consulting, with the help of professional coaches or not, Mian emphasized a few things that all candidates should focus on.

Don't put all your eggs in one (MBB) basket

Some people interested in consulting are set on joining a prestigious firm, like an MBB or a Big Four — EY, PwC, KPMG, and Deloitte.

While some Management Consulted clients do land at those firms, Mian said it's important applicants keep their options open, and that there are often great opportunities at lesser known firms.

"There are literally hundreds of consulting firms out there doing amazing work," he said. "Some of them pay just as well as the MBB or the Big Four, and nobody's ever heard of them."

Mian noted that Management Consulted's salary report, which includes salary data from more than 100 firms, shows there are plenty of lesser-known companies with high-paying starting salaries.

He said they generally advise clients to identify and focus on six to eight firms. The goal is for clients to have several offers at the end of the process that they can leverage against one another.

Timing is key

Hiring in consulting works on pretty specific timelines, which vary depending on where the applicant is in their schooling, Mian said.

For undergraduates, applications are typically due in June or July, interviews are conducted in August, and offers are given by September or October for positions that start the following summer.

That means undergraduates should ideally figure out by the second semester of sophomore year that they want to go into consulting, so they can start prepping and applying to land internships for their summer after junior year.

For first-year MBAs seeking internships, application deadlines are typically in November, with interviews in January, and offers extended by the end of January for positions that summer.

For second-year MBAs looking for a full-time role. Application deadlines are in August and September, followed by interviews and offers.

Mian said being aware of these timelines so you can prepare and network well in advance is key to landing a consulting role. He said how long you've prepared is "the number one determinant in terms of success."

"If you wait to start preparing for the interview until you already have one, it's almost always too late," he said.

Focus on mastering case studies

Case interviews are a unique and notoriously tough part of getting hired in consulting.

In a case interview, candidates are presented with a business problem and need to develop a plan to solve it in real time. Preparing for case interviews can be the most time-consuming part of getting a job in consulting.

"Case interviews are a skill that I would say don't come naturally to any human being," Niam said, adding, "You have to talk, you have to think, and you have to write at the same time."

Getting to the level of competency needed to succeed in a case interview requires a lot of practice, and specifically practicing out loud with a friend or coach.

That's why starting to prepare early, well before you even submit your application, is crucial, he said. If you wait until you get an interview there won't be enough time to get good as case studies.

Make sure you actually love business

Mian said that although it may seem obvious, before deciding to become a consultant you need to make sure you love business — reading about business, thinking about business, and talking about business.

"At the end of the day, you are solving business problems for larger organizations, and all of your projects have one of three outcomes: You are either working to increase revenue, decrease costs, or update the organizational design," Mian said. "That is my second-grade definition of what a consultant does."

Plenty of people are drawn to consulting because of the prestige and high-paying salaries, he said, but find once they are actually in the job, often spending the majority of their days as a new consultant in Excel, they don't enjoy it.

"If you don't like solving business problems, you're not going to like consulting," he said.

Have a news tip or a story to share? Do you work in consulting or have you worked with a consulting career coach? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• Republicans in Congress withdrew a spending bill after pressure from Elon Musk.
• The bill aimed to keep the government funded through mid-March.
• Trump had also called on Republicans to renegotiate the bill.

Congressional Republicans scrapped a last-minute spending bill that would keep the government funded thought mid-March after a pressure campaign from Elon Musk.

CNN and The Washington Post reported the bill had been killed.

Earlier on Wednesday, Musk wrote in a post on X, "Your elected representatives have heard you, and now the terrible bill is dead. The voice of the people has triumphed!"

The bipartisan bill was backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who had said he spoke Tuesday with Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy about their criticisms of the bill. Musk and Ramaswamy are set to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, which will serve as an advisory group to the Trump administration focused on cutting government spending.

In a post on X, Musk endorsed the idea of shutting down the government until January 20, when President-elect Donald Trump is set to be inaugurated.

Shortly after Musk's post, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance issued a statement calling on Republicans to renegotiate the bill.

Trump threatened that Republican lawmakers who failed to fall in line would face political consequences.

"If Republicans try to pass a clean Continuing Resolution without all of the Democrat 'bells and whistles' that will be so destructive to our Country, all it will do, after January 20th, is bring the mess of the Debt Limit into the Trump Administration, rather than allowing it to take place in the Biden Administration," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"Any Republican that would be so stupid as to do this should, and will, be Primaried," Trump added. "Everything should be done, and fully negotiated, prior to my taking Office on January 20th, 2025."

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told CNN Republicans scrapped the bill after Trump came out against it.

The Biden administration subsequently accused Trump and Vance of "playing politics," hurting "hardworking Americans," and creating "instability" with the last-minute rejection of the legislation.

"Triggering a damaging government shutdown would hurt families who are gathering to meet with their loved ones and endanger the basic services Americans from veterans to Social Security recipients rely on," Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. "A deal is a deal. Republicans should keep their word."

Some Democratic senators blamed Musk for the package falling apart, suggesting the billionaire already has an outsized influence on Congress' ability to pass legislation.

Sen. Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat who lost his re-election bid, told CNN that Wednesday's series of events were "bizarre, disturbing, and dangerous."

"Just the fact they're even talking about this because of a comment by one person that triggers this kind of result, it doesn't bode well for the new Congress or the new administration," he told the outlet.

• Wing and DoorDash launched drone deliveries from malls in Dallas-Fort Worth this week.
• The launch came as drone sightings have been reported around the US, including in Texas.
• Wing said its drones operate during the day and have been in the Dallas-Fort Worth area since 2021.

Wing and DoorDash launched drone deliveries from some local malls in Dallas-Forth Worth, Texas this week, just as mysterious drone sightings keep getting reported on the East Coast — and even in the Lone Star state.

Wing, which is owned by Alphabet, Google's parent company, said in a statement the company was partnering with DoorDash and Brookfield Properties to deliver goods from two local shopping malls in a "first-of-its-kind service."

The company said customers can order delivers from more than 50 stores. When checking out via DoorDash customers can choose to have the product delivered by drone, which can be as fast as 15 minutes. The drones can fly 65 mph at a cruising height of around 150 feet.

Wing drones have made more than 400,000 commercial deliveries worldwide since 2019. Wing and DoorDash have previously provided drone delivery services in Melbourne, Australia and Christiansburg, Virginia. Wing has also previously partnered with Walgreens and Walmart for drone deliveries in the Dallas-Fort Worth areas.

The launch of deliveries from malls comes at a time of heightened awareness and concern about drones. Since mid-November, US authorities have received thousands of reports of mystery drones on the East Coast, primarily in New Jersey, The White House has said only about 100 required further investigation, and that the drones do not pose a threat.

In a statement to Business Insider, a Wing spokesperson said its drones have been operating around Dallas-Forth Worth since 2021 and that the company has done extensive community outreach in the area.

"We always inform the community and work closely with local officials before launching a service," the statement said, adding, "There is no connection between our operations and the recent sightings in New Jersey."

The spokesperson said the company, which in the US operates drones in Texas, Virginia, and at a test facility in California, complies with all regulations and that the drones only operate in approved areas.

"Wing also complies with the FAA's requirements for the remote identification of unmanned aircraft to ensure transparency of our flights so that others, including law enforcement, know when and where we are flying," the statement said, adding, "We do not operate at night."

DoorDash did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

The White House has said the reported sightings on the East Coast, which have primarily been at night, have included a mix of commercial, hobbyist, and law enforcement drones. Some of the reported sightings have actually been commercial aircraft and even stars that citizens have mistaken for drones.

A day before Wing and DoorDash announced their new drone deliveries in Dallas-Fort Worth, drone sightings were reported in the area.

Police in White Settlement, located west of Fort Worth, said officials were investigating after multiple drones were spotted flying over local neighborhoods in the city, which hosts the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth.

Christopher Cook, the White Settlement police chief, said Wednesday in a post on X the department was working with federal officials, including the FBI, "out of an abundance of caution."

"While we do not believe there were any immediate threats related to last night's activities, it is concerning due to operating in "NO FLY ZONES" near federal and military properties," Cook said.

• Many major companies are requiring employees to return to the office full or part-time.
• Business Insider compiled a running list of the companies calling employees back.
• The list includes companies like Starbucks, Amazon, and BlackRock.

In September, Amazon mandated corporate workers return to the office five days a week beginning January 2.

In December, Business Insider first reported that AT&T is following suit and expecting employees to be in the office 40 hours a week starting in the new year.

The two business giants are just one of the many companies calling their employees back to the office following the pandemic as COVID-19 restrictions have eased.

The Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, told employees this week they would be required to return to the office five days a week, according to a memo obtained by Business Insider.

Other major employers, including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, have also abandoned the hybrid attendance policy they adopted during the pandemic and instead implemented full return-to-office mandates.

Several executives and leaders have said they believe productivity increases when workers are in the office together, while others hope to increase in-person collaboration. Even some CEOs who previously praised the flexibility of remote work have started backpedaling, pressuring workers to comply with RTO mandates with threats to track attendance or even fire employees who don't comply.

Here's a list, in alphabetical order, of major companies requiring employees to return to offices. Business Insider will update this list regularly.

Amazon

CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a September 16 memo that Amazon would be pulling the plug on remote work starting next year.

"We've decided that we're going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID," Jassy said. "When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant."

The CEO cited easier employee collaboration and connection and said in-person work would strengthen the company's culture, echoing his February 2023 memo, which mandated employees spend at least three days a week in the office.

Not everyone agrees. Some Amazon employees have taken to an internal Slack channel to criticize the new RTO policy, Business Insider's Ashley Stewart first reported, with one staffer writing that it is "significantly more strict and out of its mind" than pre-Covid operations.

"This is not 'going back' to how it was before," they wrote. "It's just going backwards."

The critical reaction is reminiscent of employees' response to last year's surprise return-to-office rule. Thousands of Amazon workers joined a Slack channel to share their thoughts, with some even organizing to file a petition against the change.

Apple

In August 2022, Apple's senior leaders told workers they had to return to the office at least three days a week after previously requiring two days a week. CEO Tim Cook said the decision was meant to restore "in-person collaboration." Some employees fought back and issued a petition shortly after the announcement, arguing that staffers can do "exceptional work" from home.

Despite the pushback, Apple's hybrid work program launched the following month and is still in place.

AT&T

AT&T confirmed to Business Insider that it's requiring all office employees to work on-site five days a week starting in January.

The change follows about a year of AT&T accommodating a hybrid schedule in its widely publicized office push.

"The majority of our employees and leaders never stopped working on location for the full work week — including during the pandemic," a spokesperson for the telecom giant told BI.

AT&T told BI it's updating its facilities amid the policy change.

"As we continue to evolve our model, we are enhancing our facilities and workspaces, adapting our benefits programs, and incorporating best practices to ensure our employees are best equipped to serve our customers," the spokesperson added.

BlackRock

Last year, BlackRock mandated employees return to the office four days a week. The investment firm, which is headquartered in New York City, intended to bring employees into its then newly leased office space — which spans 1 million square feet across 15 floors, according to Hudson Yards.

In a May 2023 memo sent by the company's COO, Rob Goldstein, and the head of human resources, Caroline Heller, the execs wrote: "Career development happens in teaching moments between team members, and it is accelerated during market-moving moments, when we step up and get into the mix. All of this requires us to be together in the office."

Additionally, the memo notified staffers that the firm is giving them the opportunity to work remotely for two weeks during a time period that is relevant in their country, in an effort to offer "seasonal flexibility."

Chipotle

The fast-food chain announced last summer that corporate workers work in the office four days a week, Bloomberg reported. Chipotle had previously required workers to show up three days a week, according to the report.

Citigroup

Citigroup asked its 600 US workers, who were previously eligible to work remotely, to return to the office full-time, Bloomberg reported. In a memo released by the investment firm in May, the majority of staff are reportedly still able to work a hybrid schedule, with up to two days a week outside the office.

HSBC Holding Plc and Barclays Plc also followed suit, mandating workers to come into the office five days a week, according to the report.

Vaccinated Citigroup employees across the US were asked to return to the office for at least two days a week in March 2022, an internal memo obtained by Reuters said.

Dell

Dell told its sales staff to return to the office five days a week starting on September 30. Previously, the company let US employees pick between working remotely or following a hybrid schedule with about three days a week in the office.

September's sales-team mandate came with just a few days' notice, sending employees with kids into a hurry to find childcare, Business Insider reported.

Disney

In a January 2023 memo obtained by Business Insider, CEO Bob Iger told workers that starting that March, any Disney staff member working "in a hybrid fashion" would need to return to Disney's offices four days a week.

In response, over 2,300 employees signed a petition asking Iger to reconsider the mandate.

"This policy will slow, or even reverse, our post-COVID recovery and growth by creating critical resource shortages and causing irreplaceable institutional knowledge loss," signees wrote, according to The Washington Post.

Goldman Sachs

In March 2022, CEO David Solomon told Fortune that the company was asking employees to return to the office five days a week. Seven months later, he told CNBC that about 65% of staffers were working in the office.

However, some staff have failed to follow the policy a year into its implementation, causing senior managers to become frustrated and Goldman Sachs to further crack down on employees to return to the office full-time.

Google

In March 2022, Google employees in the San Francisco Bay Area and "several other US locations" were told to return to the office for at least three days a week starting the following month.

Last year, however, the company tightened RTO expectations, telling staff in an email that office attendance would factor into their performance reviews.

Google's Chief People Officer Fiona Cicconi told workers in the memo that requests to work remotely full time will now be considered "by exception only."

Some employees expressed feeling "frustrated" with the new policy. One staffer previously told Business Insider, "We don't like being micromanaged like school kids."

IBM

IBM has made its feelings on in-person work strictly clear — telling managers to either come into offices or get out.

The company asked all its US managers to report to an office or client location at least three days a week, according to a January memo viewed by Bloomberg.

A source told the outlet that staff would have to live within 50 miles of an IBM office or client location. The memo reportedly told employees they had until August to complete their relocation arrangements, and those who were unable to comply with the new policy must "separate from IBM."

CEO Arvind Krishna previously told the news outlet that employees' careers could suffer if they work from home. He said that although he wasn't forcing his own staffers back to the office, he thought remote workers may struggle to get promotions.

JPMorgan

In April 2023, JPMorgan announced to employees in a memo that all managing directors must work in the office five days a week. The memo also reminded other workers of the current policy of working in-person a minimum of three days a week.

Despite some pushback from employees, CEO Jamie Dimon doubled down on the policy, saying disgruntled workers can choose to go elsewhere.

"I completely understand why someone doesn't want to commute an hour and a half every day, totally got it," he told The Economist. "Doesn't mean they have to have a job here either."

The company has also been collecting data on staff activity, including tracking attendance.

Meta

Meta updated its remote work policies in September 2023, requiring employees to head into the office three days a week.

It had also stopped offering remote work in new job listings. People familiar with the company previously told BI that hiring managers could no longer post new jobs that list the work location as "remote" or outside of an existing office.

The company doubled down on its RTO efforts in June of this year, telling workers that their attendance would be tracked daily and failure to comply could lead to termination.

However, some employees returning to the office said they were met with a lack of space and privacy, with one worker calling the mandate "a mess."

Redfin

In April last year, real estate company Redfin announced an updated return-to-office policy via a memo from CEO Glenn Kelman.

The memo noted that starting July 2023, Redfin would require "headquarters employees" who live within 20 miles of the company's Seattle, San Francisco, and Frisco offices to work from the office for a full day on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Those who live beyond the 20-mile radius are required to visit the office in-person once a quarter for a day or more of meetings, the company said.

In order to hold employees accountable, the memo included a "no-exceptions" section, reading that "to determine your distance from an office, we'll use Google Maps, with the distance from your home address measured in miles driven over roads by car."

Salesforce

Salesforce told employees in an internal memo seen by The San Francisco Standard that the majority of workers have to be in an office four to five days a week as of October 1.

The new policy is mandated for select staff in sales, workplace services, data center engineering, and on-site support technicians, according to the memo.

Early last year, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff revised the company's annual strategic plan, including return-to-office mandates, according to a draft shared in an internal Slack message viewed by Business Insider.

The updated draft return-to-office policy required nonremote employees to work three days a week in the office and employees in "non-remote" and "customer-facing" roles to work four days a week. Engineers must work from the office 10 days per quarter, down from 20 in the initial draft, which was updated based on employee feedback.

Snap

Snap implemented a new mandate in September 2023, requiring employees to work in an office at least four days a week. The change represented a shift from the company's former "remote first" policy, which allowed employees to work from home or elsewhere.

Employees previously told BI that some managers told them the company is able to track workers' WiFi connections to see who is complying.

Starbucks

In a January 2023 memo to corporate staffers, then-CEO Howard Schultz said employees within commuting distance would be required to return to the office at least three days a week.

Schultz said some staff had failed to "meet their minimum promise of one day a week" and also pointed out that Starbucks baristas didn't have the "privilege" of working from home. The executive had previously said he "pleaded" with workers to come back to the office.

Starbucks employees responded by signing an open letter protesting the company's return-to-office mandate.

In September, former Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol took over as CEO of the coffee chain.

In October, the company threatened to fire staff if they did not comply with the RTO policy, Bloomberg first reported, citing an internal memo.

Beginning in January, the company plans to initiate a "standardized process" to hold workers accountable to the hybrid schedule at the team level, where consequences will cover "up to, and including, separation," according to the email obtained by Bloomberg.

Employees, however, may request exemptions due to physical or mental medical reasons.

Tesla

In June 2022, Tesla employees were notified of a mandatory return-to-office policy.

The email from Elon Musk included wording such as "If you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned," and noted that everyone at Tesla must work from the office at least 40 hours a week.

Musk, who has called remote work "morally wrong," nodded to his frequent presence at Tesla factories as the reason for the business' success. "If I had not done that, Tesla would long ago have gone bankrupt," he wrote in the email.

Ubisoft

In September, Ubisoft, the France-based maker of the popular "Assassin's Creed" and "Far Cry" video game series, ordered its staff worldwide to return to the office three days a week.

French workers at the video game maker went on strike on October 15 over the RTO mandate.

X

After buying X, formerly Twitter, in 2022, Musk told employees that not showing up to an office when they're able to was the same as a resignation.

Musk also told staffers in an email that remote work was no longer allowed and that employees were expected to be in the office for at least 40 hours a week unless given explicit approval to work elsewhere.

In 2023, X, then Twitter, National Labor Relations Board filed a formal complaint saying that X had illegally fired an employee who complained about Musk's RTO policy.

The complaint said that Yao Yue, a principal software engineer, criticized the mandate, tweeting, "don't resign, let him fire you." She also posted, "don't be fired. Seriously" in a company Slack channel.

Yue was then fired five days later and told it was due to violating an unspecified company policy.

Uber

In a memo obtained by Business Insider, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told employees that beginning in April 2022, Uber staffers in 35 of the company's locations were required to return to the office at least half the time. He added that on other days, staffers were allowed to work remotely and that some could be entirely remote if they got clearance from their managers.

CEO Dara Khosrowshahi recently said remote work took away some of Uber's "most frequent customers," adding that "there is an audience who kind of stopped using us as frequently as they used to."

Walmart

Along with slashing hundreds of jobs, Walmart also asked previously remote employees in the US to move to offices.

Staffers located in smaller offices in Dallas, Atlanta, and Toronto are additionally being directed to the company's central hubs, including its headquarters in Arkansas or New Jersey, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The retail giant will still permit hybrid schedules as long as workers come in-person most of the time, according to the outlet.

The Washington Post

William Lewis, CEO and publisher of The Washington Post, told staffers in early November that they would be required to return to the office five days a week, according to a memo obtained by BI.

"I want that great office energy for us every day," Lewis wrote, referring to the energy in the office during election week. "I am reliably informed that is how it used to be here before Covid, and it's important we get this back."

All employees were expected to return to the office by June 2, 2025, while managers were expected to return by February 3, 2025.

After starting remote work in 2020, the Post previously required employees to return to the office three days a week in early 2022.

The announcement at the Post came shortly after Amazon's return-to-office mandate. The Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and executive chairman.

Zoom

Zoom, the darling of remote work, said in 2022 that less than 2% of staffers work in person full time. However, last year, the video-calling company asked employees to return to the office.

Workers living within 50 miles of one of its offices were mandated to work there at least two days a week.

"We believe that a structured hybrid approach – meaning employees that live near an office need to be onsite two days a week to interact with their teams – is most effective for Zoom," a spokesperson previously said in a statement. "As a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers."

• TikTok CEO Shou Chew met Trump at Mar-a-Lago Monday.
• TikTok is trying to avoid an impending ban on the app.
• Trump has said he is opposed to the TikTok ban and that he has a "warm spot" for the app.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew met with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, a person familiar with the meeting told Business Insider. The meeting comes as the popular video-sharing app fights to avoid an impending ban in the US.

Earlier on Monday, TikTok asked the US Supreme Court to block the law that requires the app to be sold by January 19 or be shut down. TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, argued the ban violates the First Amendment rights of the millions of Americans who use the app. The request came after a panel of federal judges earlier this month upheld the ban.

Representatives for TikTok did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Details of the meeting were unclear. Trump has spoken out against the TikTok ban, which was passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year.

"We'll take a look at TikTok," Trump said at a press conference earlier on Monday. "You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok."

Trump also said at the press conference that company executives have been more open to meeting with him ahead of his second term and that during his first term they were "hostile."

"Everybody was fighting me," he said. "This term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don't know. My personality changed or something."

Trump positioned himself as the TikTok-friendly candidate in the election

The meeting between Shou and Trump is the latest in TikTok's legal fight to remain available in the US.

The ban stems from lawmakers criticizing TikTok's data-collection practices and being concerned that the Chinese government is using the app to influence American politics.

In his first term, Trump tried to get the app banned in the US. But he has since flipped-flopped on his stance.

During this presidential run, Trump positioned himself as the TikTok-friendly candidate.

In June, he launched a TikTok account to rally younger voters. It now has 14.7 million followers.

Some of his closest advisors — some of whom he has tapped for cabinet roles — support the app's banning.

His pick for secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, called the potential ban a "win for America" in March. Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr is also a vocal critic of the app, having called it an "unacceptable threat to U.S. national security."

Other cabinet picks, such as tech executive Jacob Helberg, the former US director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, and Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, are all outspoken critics of the app.

• Montana contractors are struggling to hire due to a construction labor shortage.
• Many contractors say they are actively recruiting Gen Z to get more young people into trades.
• Some firms have apprenticeship programs that help young workers learn on the job.

Although Montana's population has grown considerably in recent years, it's facing worker shortages in several trades, according to a September report from the Montana Department of Labor and Industry.

Construction and healthcare were identified by Sarah Swanson, the department commissioner, as industries that would "need considerably more employees between now and 2032."

Contractors say that although demand for construction in Montana is strong, they can't hire enough people to keep up with all the potential work.

Now some Montana contractors are investing in recruiting efforts to attract more workers to the field, including by launching educational and apprenticeship programs and visiting high schools to encourage Gen Zers to consider construction as a career.

"We're trying to prove and show that these hands-on careers do have value," Bill Ryan, the education coordinator at Dick Anderson Construction, one of the largest contractors in Montana, told Business Insider.

"The tide is turning a little bit," he said. "We're starting to see more Gen Z consider going into trades."

Contractors are raising wages to attract workers

The construction labor shortage is not just hitting Montana, putting added pressure on contractors trying to hire.

Brian Turmail, the vice president of public affairs and workforce at the Associated General Contractors of America, told BI contractors around the US are struggling to fill roles.

AGC's annual workforce survey released in December found 94% of contractors said they had openings that were difficult to fill.

Ken Simonson, the chief economist at AGC, told BI that the number of workers in construction in Montana grew by 7% year-over-year as of October, compared to 3% growth nationally. Even as the sector is growing in the state, there's still more roles to fill.

Turmail said one factor driving the shortage is not unique to construction: an aging workforce.

"We just have a lot of people hanging up the tool belts and moving off to Florida to retire," he said.

He said there's also been about 40 years of federal government policy that focused on encouraging every student in America to go to college to get a four-year degree and work in the "knowledge economy."

As a result, he said there's been underinvestment in vocational or technical training, and in turn fewer young people pursing trades.

Some construction companies have tried to draw more people to the field with proactive recruiting efforts and higher wages — including trying to attract workers from out of state. Montana has already lured a high number transplants in part due to a relatively lower cost of living, especially when compared to a state like California, where many have moved from.

Ian Baylon, a tradesman from California, told BI earlier this year that when he visited Montana in 2022 and was considering moving there, he decided on a whim to see if anyone was hiring.

When he reached out to a company about an opening, they quickly invited him in for an interview. A week later when he was back home, they offered him the job — matching his Bay Area salary, plus moving costs and other perks.

In Montana, wage growth in construction grew annually by an average of 0.6% from 2020 to 2023, according to the state government report, with an average salary of $67,386.

Still, some say the growth in wages has not been enough to keep up with the rising costs of living in the state. An analysis by Construction Coverage, an industry site that reviews construction software and other services, found the average construction worker in Montana would need to work 68 hours a week to afford a median-priced home.

Apprenticeship programs allow young workers to 'earn and learn'

Two of the largest contractors in Montana told BI that folks interested in getting into construction do not need any experience in the industry to get hired — they can learn on the job.

Representatives of both companies, Dick Anderson and Sletten Construction, said they also have dedicated apprenticeship programs that are a draw for new workers to the field, especially young people.

Ryan, of Dick Anderson, said he was hired by the company in 2021 to develop an education program that would help attract and retain employees. The four-year apprenticeship program allows employees to work and earn while also enrolling in classes at a college they partner with. Students who complete the program can come out of it with an associates degree, real work experience, and actual earnings.

While jobs in construction do not require an associates degree, Ryan said they can help with career advancement and promotions, as well as satisfy a desire to pursue some level of college.

"When we are talking to young people and mom and dad are saying, 'You're not going to work. You need to go to college,' we can at least say, 'Well, what if they're doing both at the same time?'"

Michelle Cohens, who works in human resource management at Sletten, said the company also has a four-year apprenticeship program that allows employees to "earn and learn." Employees in the program also take a week several times a year to do trainings with the union, and then come back and hop right back into work.

Both companies said they've developed relationships with high schools and high school educators to help reach young people, who they said seem increasingly open to forgoing college and considering trades.

After several years of trying to get in front of students, Cohens said the efforts do seem to be paying off, with more reaching out about jobs. She said young people are drawn in by the chance to work with their hands rather than sit at a computer all day, and the chance to avoid taking on student loans.

"We highlight how good paying jobs they are, how you can get into the trades right out of high school or without any true knowledge," she said, adding, "You're not paying us to learn, we're paying you to learn."

David Smith, executive director of the Montana Contractors' Association, said companies are also evolving their culture to meet Gen Z workers where they're at. Young people today, he said, don't necessarily want to work 55 hour weeks in the summer. They want breaks. They want to take time off.

In the last five or ten years contractors have realized "you can't just throw a job out there and say, 'Hey, we pay big wages,'" he said. "You've got to have other things, and the construction world has to think differently too."

Have a news tip or a story to share? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• The Pew Research Center surveyed American teenagers about social media and technology.
• Seventeen percent said they used Elon Musk's social media app, X — a steep decline compared to a decade ago.
• More teens use Meta's Instagram, Facebook, and, increasingly, WhatsApp.

American teenagers just don't love X.

It's one of the least used major social media sites among US teenagers, followed only by Reddit and Threads, according to a new study published by the Pew Research Center.

The Washington DC-based think tank surveyed nearly 1,400 teenagers between September and October to collect the data, which showed that 17% of teen respondents said they use X, a six-point decrease from 2022 when 23% of surveyed teenagers said they used the site.

Elon Musk purchased X, formerly Twitter, in 2022.

Representatives for X did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Other popular social media sites also saw a decline in use among teens.

YouTube, owned by Google, attracted the highest percentage of teenage users despite falling from 95% to 90% from 2022 to 2024. ByteDance's TikTok came in second place with 63% of respondents saying they used the app, compared to 67% two years ago.

Snap Inc.'s Snapchat recorded 55%, another slight decline from 59% in 2022.

Instagram, owned by Meta, was used by 61%, about the same as two years ago, while Meta's Facebook also held steady at 32%. Reddit also remained consistent, with 14% of teens saying they used the app, the same as 2022.

Threads, which Meta launched in 2023, was used by 6% of teens.

There was only one social media site that grew in popularity with teens over the past two years: WhatsApp.

The Meta-owned messaging app went from 17% of teens saying they used it in 2022 to 23% this year — overtaking X in teenage users, according to the Pew surveys.

Meta, then Facebook Inc., bought WhatsApp for $22 billion in 2014, an investment that the company says is finally paying off.

On Meta's quarter-three earnings call in November, the company reported a 48% year-over-year increase in non-advertising revenue that was largely attributed to WhatsApp.

The revenue boost was mostly due to the app's product that allows businesses to pay to chat directly with customers.

But WhatsApp is also known to be great for large group chats, which have become increasingly popular with teens.

• The Alexander brothers have been hit with federal sex-trafficking charges.
• Oren and Tal Alexander are top real-estate agents. Police also arrested a third brother.
• The brothers earlier denied the accusations through an attorney.

The Alexander brothers were arrested on Wednesday on federal charges of sex trafficking. Prosecutors accused the siblings of operating a "long-running sex trafficking scheme," according to an unsealed indictment.

The New York prosecutors said in the indictment that Tal and Oren — who are among the nation's top luxury real-estate agents — and their brother, Alon, collaborated for more than a decade with others both "known and unknown" to "repeatedly and violently drug, sexually assault, and rape dozens of victims."

The indictment said the brothers used their wealth and prominent positions "to create opportunities to rape and sexually assault women" in Manhattan and Miami in a scheme that began in 2010 and lasted more than 10 years.

At times, prosecutors said the brothers planned out the sexual assaults in advance "using the promise of luxury experiences, travel, and accommodations to lure and entice women to locations where they were forcibly raped or sexually assaulted, sometimes by multiple men, including one or more of the Alexander brothers."

Other times, the Alexander brothers chose their victims by chance, prosecutors said.

The real-estate duo, in particular, the indictment said, "used their prominent positions in the industry to induce other women to attend events and parties, and to meet other women at those events and parties, whom one or more of the defendants later sexually assaulted."

Prosecutors alleged the Alexander brothers worked together and with other men to arrange events and both domestic and international trips that they used as "bait" to "recruit, entice, harbor, transport, and maintain multiple women."

Ahead of events and trips, the Alexander brothers would secure drugs, including hallucinogenic mushrooms, cocaine, and GHB, which they agreed to provide women, the indictment says.

On multiple occasions, they and others would "surreptitiously" drug women's drinks, prosecutors said.

"At times, the defendants physically restrained and held down their victims during the rapes and sexual assaults and ignored screams and explicit requests to stop," the indictment said.

Oren Alexander, Alon Alexander, and their cousin, Ohad Fisherman, were also separately charged in Florida with sexual battery in three incidents in Miami involving three different women in 2016, 2017, and 2021.

Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the state attorney for Miami-Dade County in Florida, announced the charges in a joint news conference with the Miami Beach police department on Wednesday.

Florida prosecutors charged Oren Alexander with three counts of sexual battery, with one of the charges involving multiple perpetrators and classified as a second-degree felony. Alon Alexander was charged with one count of sexual battery involving multiple perpetrators, a second-degree felony. Fisherman was charged with one count of sexual battery by multiple perpetrators.

In the first incident in 2016, Oren and Alon took turns raping a woman at Alon's Miami Beach apartment while Fisherman held her down, the state attorney said. The woman told police that after the assault, Oren asked her to shower and Alon told her not to tell anybody what had happened. The woman told her two sisters and a friend about the assault but did not contact police at the time because she feared retribution from the men, the state attorney said.

Prosecutors said the second incident, which involved only Oren, took place after a woman attended a real-estate event with him in 2017. After the event, Oren invited her to his apartment, where he gave her a glass of wine, after which she said she felt weak and out of control of her body. She found herself on Oren's bed with Oren on top of her; she could not move or speak or push him off. He then raped her, she said.

In the third incident in 2021, a woman met Oren at a dinner she attended with a friend, the state attorney said. Oren invited the woman and her friend to his house on Flamingo Drive. At his house, Oren brought the woman to a couch next to his bedroom, removed her shoes, and started kissing her. The woman said she felt uncomfortable as Oren became aggressive. When she tried to pull away from him, he ripped off the top of her dress, leaving her naked on top. She went to his bedroom to grab a T-shirt from his closet and tried to leave the house. But when she got downstairs, she realized she could not leave because the doors were remote-controlled. She went back upstairs to ask Oren to let her out. There, Oren pushed her onto his bed, held her down with his knees, and assaulted her as she told him no, prosecutors said.

Rundle, the state attorney, thanked the "brave women" for disclosing what happened to them.

"These women are strong and they're resilient," she said. "They are an example to anyone else out there who has experienced sex violence."

Local news footage showed Oren and Alon being escorted into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami on Wednesday. Tal, who was not mentioned in the Florida news conference, was being held at a separate jail, Local 10 News reported.

The brothers' arrest follows years of sexual-assault allegations by multiple women.

Deanna Paul, a New York attorney for Tal Alexander, confirmed to Business Insider that police arrested the brothers in Miami on Wednesday morning but declined to comment further.

The brothers have "strongly" denied any wrongdoing, James Cinque, a New York-based attorney, told Business Insider in September.

"We have asked them not to comment while these matters work their way through the legal system," Cinque said, "but are comfortable that they will ultimately be vindicated."

The FBI began investigating the Alexander brothers after The Real Deal first reported in June that two women had filed civil lawsuits against Oren and Alon earlier this year.

The women, Kate Whiteman and Rebecca Mandel, said the brothers took turns raping them in two separate incidents in 2010 and 2012, respectively. About 10 days after The Real Deal's article was published, another woman, Angelica Parker, filed a lawsuit accusing Alon and Tal of raping her in their New York City apartment in 2012 while Oren watched. In July, a fourth woman, the actor and comedian Renée Willett, filed a lawsuit against Oren, accusing him of drugging and raping her, also in his SoHo apartment in 2015.

"We are glad to hear that there will finally be some measure of accountability for the Alexander brothers and justice for their many victims," David E. Gottlieb, a partner at Wigdor, the law firm representing Parker, said in a statement to BI. "We applaud all the survivors who have had the strength and courage to speak up about their unimaginable experiences after years of pain and suffering."

A day after the criminal indictments, another woman, going by "Jane Doe," filed a lawsuit in New York against Alon and Oren, accusing them both of raping her in 2016.

The lawsuit said Alon invited the plaintiff to a barbecue and pool party in Miami on New Year's Eve but that when she arrived she realized she was the only guest. She said Fisherman held her down while Oren raped her with Alon watching. Alon then raped her, the lawsuit said.

Lawyers for Alon, Oren, and Fisherman did not respond to a request for comment from BI on the new lawsuit.

Alon and Oren also appeared in court in Miami on Thursday, where a judge ordered they be held without bond, The New York Times reported. Alon had told the judge his wife was expected to give birth to their first child "any day now" and that she was counting on him to be with her. The next hearing is set for Friday.

At a press conference on Wednesday announcing the indictment, Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, called on additional victims to speak out.

"Our investigation is far from over," Williams said. "If you have been a victim of the alleged sexual violence perpetrated by Alon Alexander, Oren Alexander, or Tal Alexander — or if you know anything about their alleged crimes — we urge you to come forward."

Since June, more than a dozen women have said they were raped or assaulted by the three brothers, sometimes in tandem. Business Insider spoke to four women who described being assaulted or feeling coerced into sexual encounters, including one who said Tal, now 38, raped her in Las Vegas in 2017.

Business Insider's investigation found that it was an open secret in wealthy social circles for years that the Alexander twins, 37, and their older brother Tal, mistreated women.

Oren and Tal started their real-estate careers at Douglas Elliman before launching their own brokerage, Official, in 2022. Alon works for the family's security company in Florida.

December 12, 2024: This story has been updated to include a new lawsuit that was filed a day after the criminal indictments as well as Alon and Oren's court appearance on Thursday.

• Kroger's proposed $24.6 billion acquisition of Albertsons was blocked by a federal judge.
• The judge agreed with the FTC that the merger would weaken competition for US grocery shoppers.
• The acquisition would be the largest supermarket merger in US history.

Kroger's $24.6 billion proposed acquisition of Albertsons was blocked by a federal judge on Tuesday, marking a win for the Federal Trade Commission that could ultimately sink the deal.

US District Judge Adrienne Nelson in Oregon found the acquisition would weaken competition for US consumers, agreeing with the FTC's arguments that it would violate anti-trust laws. 

In statements provided to Business Insider following the ruling, Kroger and Albertsons said they were disappointed by the decision.

Kroger said the evidence it presented in court showed a merger between the two companies would be "in the best interests of customers, associates, and the broader competitive environment in a rapidly evolving grocery landscape."

"We believe we clearly outlined during the proceedings how the proposed merger would expand competition, lower prices, increase associate wages, protect union jobs, and enhance customers' shopping experience," the statement from Albertsons said.

The companies said they were evaluating their options following the court's decision.

Lawyers for the companies previously said the deal would likely be called off if the judge ruled against it. 

"This merger will not occur if this injunction is in place," Matthew Wolf, an attorney for Kroger, previously said in court.

The acquisition would be the largest supermarket merger in US history. In its efforts to block the acquisition the FTC said the deal would reduce competition as well as lead to higher prices for US grocery shoppers and lower wages for workers.

"Kroger and Albertsons are two of the largest supermarket chains in thousands of local communities throughout the country," the FTC lawsuit said. "In hundreds of those communities, the proposed acquisition would create a single supermarket with market shares so high as to be presumptively unlawful under the antitrust laws."

The companies argued the acquisition would allow Kroger to compete with retail giants like Walmart, Costco, and Amazon. They also said the deal would lead to lower prices for some consumers, citing higher prices at Albertsons stores compared to Kroger.

The judge's decision also marked a win for FTC Chair Lina Khan, who has led aggressive anti-trust efforts against large corporations.

• Luigi Mangione has been charged with murder in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's killing.
• Mangione, an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy family, left an online trail before his arrest.
• He founded an app, talked about AI on X, and read the Unabomber Manifesto.

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old Ivy League graduate charged with murder in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has a vast online trail.

Police arrested Mangione in Pennsylvania on December 9. He initially faced local gun and forgery charges. He's expected to be extradited to New York.

New York court documents show that in addition to one count of murder, he also faces two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, one count of second-degree possession of a forged document, and one count of third-degree criminal possession of a firearm.

Here's what to know about Mangione.

Mangione attended elite schools

Mangione graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020.

He achieved a Bachelor of Science in engineering with a major in computer science and a minor in mathematics. He also received a Master of Science in engineering the same year with a major in computer and information science, a university spokesperson told Business Insider.

Before that, he attended Gilman School, an elite all-boys preparatory school in Baltimore. His yearbook entry, obtained by BI, says he was involved in robotics and Model United Nations.

In his valedictorian speech, Mangione praised classmates for "challenging the world" and thanked parents for sending their children to the fee-paying school, which he described as "far from a small financial investment."

He favorably reviewed the Unabomber Manifesto

On Goodreads, Mangione reviewed Ted Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and Its Future" book, also known as The Unabomber Manifesto, in early 2024. He gave it four out of five stars.

"He was a violent individual — rightfully imprisoned — who maimed innocent people," Mangione wrote. "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."

Mangione's review of the manifesto also quoted another online comment about the book, which appears to have originated on Reddit, praising the use of violence "when all other forms of communication fail."

"'Violence never solved anything' is a statement uttered by cowards and predators,'" Mangione quoted.

He founded an app and worked in tech

In 2015, while in high school, Mangione founded a company called AppRoar Studios. AppRoar released an iPhone game called "Pivot Plane" that's no longer available, but a reviewer in 2015 said it was "a fun little arcade game brought to you by 3 high school juniors."

He lived in a co-living space in Hawaii as recently as 2023.

He posed for photos indicating he participated in Greek life at the University of Pennsylvania.

The fraternity chapter represented in his photos couldn't be reached for comment.

A blog post on the University of Pennsylvania's website that was removed on December 9 said he cofounded a video game design club there.

Stephen Lane, a professor of video game design at the Ivy League university who didn't advise the club, told BI that "the fact he took the initiative and started something from nothing, that means at least in the context of Penn, that's a pretty good thing." He added, however, that Thompson's shooting was "obviously not a good thing."

Mangione's LinkedIn page says he worked as a data engineer at the vehicle shopping company TrueCar starting in 2020.

A TrueCar spokesperson told BI that Mangione hadn't worked for the company since 2023.

Online breadcrumbs and roommate say he dealt with back pain

At the top of Mangione's profile on X — formerly Twitter — is a triptych of three images: a photo of himself, smiling, shirtless on a mountain ridge; a Pokémon; and an X-ray with four pins or screws visible in the lower back.

The Pokémon featured in his cover image is Breloom, which has special healing abilities in the games.

Some of the books reviewed on Mangione's Goodreads account are related to health and healing back pain, including "Back Mechanic: The Secrets to a Healthy Spine Your Doctor Isn't Telling You" and "Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery."

R.J. Martin, the founder of the co-living space in Hawaii, told the Honolulu Civil Beat that Mangione had suffered back pain from a misaligned vertebra that was pinching his spinal cord.

Martin told CNN that after leaving Hawaii, Mangione texted him to say he'd undergone surgery and sent him X-rays.

"It looked heinous, with just, giant screws going into his spine," Martin told the outlet.

It's not immediately clear whether the surgery was related to UnitedHealthcare.

Josiah Ryan, a spokesperson for the co-living space founder, told The Wall Street Journal that Mangione stopped replying to texts about six months ago and "sort of disappeared."

A YouTube spokesperson said that the platform had terminated Mangione's three accounts, adding that they had not been active for about seven months.

A senior police official told NBC New York on December 12 that Magione was never a UnitedHealthcare client and may have targeted Thompson because of the insurer's large size and outsize power. That same day, The Wall Street Journal reported that a company spokesperson said Magione was not a client.

Mangione was interested in AI

On his X account, Mangione posted and amplified posts about technological advances such as artificial intelligence. He also posted about fitness and healthy living.

He frequently reposted posts by the writer Tim Urban and the commentator Jonathan Haidt about the promise and perils of technology.

He also appeared to be a fan of Michael Pollan, known for his writing about food, ethics, and lab-grown meat.

On Goodreads, he praised Urban's book "What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies," describing it as "one of the most important philosophical texts of the early 21st century."

Urban posted to X on December 9: "Very much not the point of the book."

He was previously accused of trespassing

Before his arrest, Mangione had at least one encounter with the legal system. Hawaiian court records indicate that in 2023, he was accused of entering a forbidden area of a state park.

Mangione appears to have paid a $100 fine to resolve the matter.

Mangione comes from a wealthy and influential Baltimore family

Mangione is one of 37 grandchildren of the late Nick Mangione Sr., a prominent multimillionaire real-estate developer in Baltimore who died in 2008, The Baltimore Banner reported. Nick Mangione Sr. had 10 children, including Louis Mangione, Luigi Mangione's father.

Members of the Mangione family own the Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City, Maryland, and Hayfields Country Club in Hunt Valley, Maryland.

One of Luigi Mangione's cousins is the Republican Maryland state legislator Nino Mangione, the Associated Press reported.

Representatives for Nino Mangione's office, in a statement to BI, declined to comment on the news of Luigi Mangione's arrest.

"Unfortunately, we cannot comment on news reports regarding Luigi Mangione," the statement read. "We only know what we have read in the media. Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi's arrest. We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved. We are devastated by this news."

The Mangione family has donated more than $1 million to the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, where all of Nick Mangione Sr.'s grandkids, including Luigi Mangione, were born, the Banner reported.

A public filing from 2022 for the nonprofit Mangione Family Foundation lists Louis Mangione as vice president.

He was arrested while on his laptop at a McDonald's, the police said

When the police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, responded to a McDonald's after a call about a suspicious person, they found Mangione sitting at a table looking at a silver laptop and wearing a blue medical mask, a criminal complaint said.

The complaint said that when asked for identification, Mangione gave police officers a New Jersey driver's license with the name "Mark Rosario."

When an officer asked Mangione whether he'd been to New York recently, he "became quiet and started to shake," the complaint said.

It added that Mangione correctly identified himself after officers told him he could be arrested for lying about his identity.

When asked why he lied, Mangione replied, "I clearly shouldn't have," the complaint said.

His motive is still not known, but police are analyzing his so-called manifesto

An internal NYPD report obtained by The New York Times said Mangione "likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices."

Mangione "appeared to view the targeted killing of the company's highest-ranking representative as a symbolic takedown and a direct challenge to its alleged corruption and 'power games,' asserting in his note he is the 'first to face it with such brutal honesty,'" according to the NYPD report by the department's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau, the Times reported.

Moments before the December 10 extradition hearing began, Mangione, handcuffed and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, shouted out to the press as Pennsylvania police escorted him into the courthouse.

Mangione yelled out something partially unintelligible, saying something was "completely out of touch" and "an insult to the American people." He also shouted that something was a "lived experience" as a group of officers led him into the courthouse.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told NBC New York that Mangione had prior knowledge that UnitedHealthcare would be having its annual conference in New York City.

Mangione has retained a high-profile New York attorney

Thomas Dickey emerged as Mangione's attorney in Pennsylvania after his arrest in Altoona on December 9.

During a December 10 hearing at Pennsylvania's Blair County Courthouse, Dickey told the judge that Mangione was contesting his extradition to New York City.

Dickey later told reporters that Mangione would plead not guilty to all the charges in Pennsylvania. During an interview with CNN, Dickey said he expected Mangione to plead not guilty to the second-degree murder charge in New York and that he hadn't seen evidence that authorities "have the right guy."

Karen Friedman Agnifilo will represent Mangione in New York, a representative for Agnifilo Intrater LLP confirmed to Business Insider on Sunday.

Friedman Agnifilo worked as the chief assistant district attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office from 2014 to 2021. She pivoted to private practice in 2021.

Do you know Luigi Mangione? Have a tip? Reach out to [email protected].

• UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot outside a Manhattan hotel on December 4.
• Police arrested Luigi Mangione, who now faces a murder charge for the killing.
• Mangione has hired prominent New York lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo to defend him.

Luigi Mangione, the man police say murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has hired high-profile attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo.

Friedman Agnifilo is married to Marc Agnifilo, lead lawyer defending Sean "Diddy" Combs against federal sex-trafficking charges.

The Combs and Mangione cases will be handled by the same Manhattan law firm, Agnifilo Intrater LLP, and can be expected to dominate legal news headlines in the coming year.

In getting retained, Friedman Agnifilo bested some half-dozen other prominent attorneys who had been interviewed by the Mangione family last week, according to multiple sources who asked not to be named due to their connection with the case.

Friedman Agnifilo last week left her previous law firm, Perry Law, to join her husband's firm as counsel, representatives for both firms told Business Insider.

Friedman Agnifilo had been a CNN commentator as recently as Wednesday, when she suggested that an insanity defense would be Mangione's best bet.

She told journalist Kaitlan Collins, "It looks like to me there might be a 'not guilty by reason of insanity' defense that they're going to be thinking about because the evidence is going to be so overwhelming that he did what he did."

On Friday night, Collins broke the news that Friedman Agnifilo had been hired by the Mangione family.

Friedman Agnifilo worked as the chief assistant district attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office for seven years before pivoting to private practice in 2021.

Mangione faces a second-degree murder charge in New York for the fatal December 4 shooting of Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two from Minnesota. That charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

(A charge of first-degree murder is reserved for those accused of killing a law enforcement official or witness of a crime, or for when a murder is committed during the commission of another high-level crime, including robbery, rape, or kidnapping.)

Mangione is fighting extradition to New York City. The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate appeared for a hearing on December 10 at Pennsylvania's Blair County Courthouse, where a lawyer, Thomas Dickey, told the judge that Mangione was contesting his extradition. Police arrested Mangione in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on December 9 on local charges and later arraigned. Mangione made a bail request, which the judge denied during the hearing.

The suspect will remain at Pennsylvania's Huntingdon State Correctional Institution during the extradition proceedings. Dickey told reporters on December 10 that Mangione would plead not guilty to all the charges in Pennsylvania.

In an interview with CNN that evening, Dickey also said that he anticipates Mangione would plead not guilty to the murder charge in New York and that he hadn't seen any evidence that officials in New York "have the right guy."

Mangione also faces four other charges related to the killing of the insurance CEO: two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second-degree, one count of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, and one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the third-degree.

A gun found on Mangione matched the three shell casings found at the site of the shooting, New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said during a December 11 press conference.

Tisch added that the suspect's fingerprints also matched those found on a water bottle and snack bar wrapper discarded near the crime scene.

During Mangione's arrest, officers found a three-page handwritten document "that speaks to both his motivation and mindset," Tisch said at a separate press conference on December 9.

An internal NYPD report obtained by The New York Times gave the clearest view of the potential motive yet. Based on the so-called manifesto discovered, Mangione "likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices," the NYPD report said, as reported by the Times.

Mangione "appeared to view the targeted killing of the company's highest-ranking representative as a symbolic takedown and a direct challenge to its alleged corruption and 'power games,' asserting in his note he is the 'first to face it with such brutal honesty,'" according to the NYPD report by the department's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau, the Times reported.

In a statement to Business Insider, representatives for Nino Mangione — a Maryland state legislator and a cousin of Mangione's — declined to comment on the news of Mangione's arrest.

"Unfortunately, we cannot comment on news reports regarding Luigi Mangione," the statement read. "We only know what we have read in the media. Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi's arrest."

Recognized at a McDonald's

Mangione was eating in an Altoona McDonald's when an employee recognized him from the several surveillance images that authorities released in the aftermath of Thompson's killing and called the police, New York police said at the December 9 press conference.

Altoona police found Mangione in the McDonald's with multiple fake IDs and a US passport, as well as a firearm and a suppressor "both consistent with the weapon used" in the shooting of Thompson in the heart of Manhattan, Tisch, the NYPD commissioner, said.

The gun appeared to be a "ghost gun" that may have been made on a 3-D printer. NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at the press conference that such a gun could fire a 9-millimeter round.

A Pennsylvania criminal complaint filed against Mangione said officers found a black 3-D-printed pistol and 3-D-printed silencer inside the suspect's backpack.

When Altoona officers asked Mangione if he had been to New York recently, he "became quiet and started to shake," the criminal complaint said.

Clothing, including a mask, was also recovered "consistent with those worn" by the suspect wanted for Thompson's killing, along with a fake New Jersey ID matching the ID that the murder suspect used to check into a Manhattan hostel before the attack, Tisch said.

Based on the handwritten document that police found on Mangione, according to Kenny, "it does seem that he has some ill will toward corporate America."

During a December 10 interview on NBC's "Today" show, Tisch said the "manifesto" revealed "anti-corporatist sentiment" and "a lot of issues with the healthcare industry."

"But as to like particular, specific motive that'll come out as this investigation continues to unfold over the next weeks and month," the NYPD commissioner said.

NBC News and The New York Times, each citing an unnamed senior law enforcement official, reported that the handwritten document read in part: "These parasites had it coming."

"I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done," it added, according to the reports.

Police believe that Mangione acted alone.

NYPD investigators traveled to Altoona last week to interview Mangione after Altoona officers took him into custody.

Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks said at Mangione's Pennsylvania arraignment that Mangione was carrying $10,000 in cash, including foreign currency, according to the Associated Press.

Mangione disputed the amount in court.

Mangione was active on social media

Mangione posted and amplified posts about technological advances like artificial intelligence on X. He also posted about fitness and healthy living.

He frequently retweeted posts by the writer Tim Urban and commentator Jonathan Haidt about the promise and perils of technology. He also appeared to be a fan of Michael Pollan, known for his writing about food and ethics.

Other deleted social media posts showed support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and expressed skepticism toward both President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump.

At the top of his profile was a header image with three images: a photo of himself, smiling, shirtless on a mountain ridge, a Pokemon, and an x-ray with four pins or screws visible in the lower back.

Mangione founded a company called AppRoar Studios in 2015 while still in high school. AppRoar released an iPhone game called Pivot Plane that is no longer available.

The two other cofounders of AppRoar could not be reached for comment.

Mangione's X account has been deactivated. A spokesperson for YouTube said his three accounts on the platform were also terminated, but that they had not been active for about seven months.

A manhunt

Mangione's arrest followed a nearly week-long manhunt.

According to police, Manigone was born and raised in Maryland, and has ties to San Francisco, California. His last known address was in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The New York Post, citing law-enforcement sources, reported that Mangione's mother reported him missing in mid-November.

Law-enforcement sources told ABC News that FBI agents and members of the NYPD spoke to the mother a day before Mangione's arrest, following a tip, and that in the conversation she indicated that the person in the surveillance photos could be her son.

Kenny, the NYPD's chief of detectives, said that Manigone has no prior arrest history in New York and no known arrests in the US.

A Luigi Mangione with a matching birthday and address received a citation for simple trespass for entering a forbidden area of a state park in Hawaii in November 2023. He pleaded no contest and paid a $100 fine.

"For just over five days, our NYPD investigators combed through thousands of hours of video, followed up on hundreds of tips, and processed every bit of forensic evidence — DNA, fingerprints, IP addresses and so much to tighten the net," Tisch said at Monday's press conference announcing the arrest of Manigone.

Thompson was shot multiple times on a Midtown sidewalk as he was walking toward the Hilton hotel. He was steps away from a side entrance to the hotel — where he was set to speak at UnitedHealth Group's investor conference — when a hooded gunman opened fire on him from behind.

The chief executive of the nation's largest health insurer was struck at least once in the back and at least once in the right calf, police said.

Surveillance footage showed the gunman firing his weapon as Thompson, wearing a blue suit jacket, walked several feet in front of him.

The gunman fled the scene, first on foot and then on an electric bike, which he rode into Central Park before ultimately escaping from New York City, police said.

Shell casings and bullets found at the scene had the words "deny," "defend," and "depose" written on them, according to multiple reports citing unnamed sources. BI couldn't independently confirm these details.

In the aftermath of the attack, the NYPD offered a $10,000 reward for tips leading to the gunman's arrest, with the FBI offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

A spokesperson for UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, reacted to news of Manigone's arrest in a statement to BI, saying: "Our hope is that today's apprehension brings some relief to Brian's family, friends, colleagues and the many others affected by this unspeakable tragedy. We thank law enforcement and will continue to work with them on this investigation. We ask that everyone respect the family's privacy as they mourn."

• Haley and Shane Mahabadi left corporate jobs and a six-figure salary to travel full time.
• The married couple planned and saved for years before heading to Southeast Asia.
• They're living on savings and some freelance work while exploring different income streams.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Haley and Shane Mahabadi, a married couple in their late 20s who lived in Denver until August when they started traveling full-time in Southeast Asia. Haley left her corporate job in 2023 and Shane left his this year so they could travel.

Haley: After graduating college in 2019, we did a two-and-a-half month-long backpacking trip through Southeast Asia. It was extremely life-changing and impactful.

But of course, we had that tug of responsibility that brought us back to working and doing what everyone else was doing. We started working in corporate America 9-to-5, five days a week, no flexibility, no freedom, just feeling chained to the desk. And I just wondered, "Is this what the next 40 years is?"

We started wondering, "What if we could make traveling full time work?" After five years of daydreaming, planning, and saving, we made it happen this year.

We've been traveling around Southeast Asia for over three months. We were in Indonesia for a month, Thailand for month, Vietnam for a few weeks, then the Philippines.

We've had some of the most incredible adventures. We've met really interesting people. We've gotten to meet locals and try local cuisine and do all these things that we always were daydreaming about. So it's kind of a "pinch me" that we're actually out here.

I just thought, if we never take this leap, I wonder if, when we're in our fifties and we'll look back and say, "Why didn't we do that?"

We kind of joke that we're pulling a year forward from retirement and traveling now while we're young and able.

Leaving a job with a six-figure salary was hard

Haley: In 2023, I was working as a creative director at a marketing agency, and I just found myself unhappy and feeling a little bit unfulfilled. I decided to quit my job to freelance and work my own hours.

I am still able to work while traveling. For clients, I do social media management as well as photography and video creation.

Shane took a massive leap because he was getting a high-paying six-figure job in corporate America.

Shane: It was definitely scary to take the leap because I was doing well in my career and moving up, but we'd been fantasizing about it for five years.

I was working as a manager of strategy and analytics at Dish Network, where I'd worked for about four years.

I really liked the role. I loved my team, loved the department I worked in. I guess the downside was it was just like an old-school job — five days a week in the office, not much flexibility. I wanted something that would allow me to travel more or work from other places. I thought if I don't do this now, before we probably start a family, it's going to be essentially impossible to do it then.

People at work were sad to see me go but they were supportive. My boss offered to write a letter of recommendation and to help me when I want to reenter the workforce. That was a big relief to know that I have people on my side who can vouch for me that I was a good worker and I'm not just a crazy guy traveling the world without plan.

When I come back, it might take a little bit of time, but I think I'll be able to find something eventually.

Our goal is to travel for a year. We're paying for it with savings, and then Haley's consistent stream of income. If something crazy happens and we're able to make a bunch of other streams of income that are doing really well, we could potentially extend it.

When we were planning I made a spreadsheet with roughly what I thought we would spend per day on hotels, food, activities, flights, and jotted it out from there.

We also saved our credit card miles for the past few years, so we really haven't had to spend money on any of the big international flights.

The cost of living is so much lower here in Southeast Asia that you don't need quite as much saved or you don't need to be making as much to extend your time and travel for longer.

We hope we can keep this flexibility forever

Haley: We don't plan to travel forever. We miss our families and community back home. But now I'm wondering how we can we make this flexibility work forever.

Our main priority right now is traveling, but we are also trying different things in our free time and seeing if we can create multiple streams of income, because even when we go back to the states, it would be amazing to continue to have a more flexible lifestyle.

We've been trying all these things that we probably wouldn't have if we didn't have all this free time. We've been hiking, swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving.

We did the Ha Giang Loop in Northern Vietnam. You motorbike for three days through the most incredible landscape you've ever seen. Just driving on the back of the motorbikes with the guide, wind in your hair, down winding mountain roads. You just felt like you were living.

I think in that moment I felt so glad we did this. There was not even a question in my body of regret.

Shane: Deciding to do this was hard, but one of the things that mentally helped me was saying, "What's the worst that can happen?"

The worst that can happen is we're going to lose out on some amount of money, but we'll have traveled the world for a year.

That's not that bad of a worst-case scenario.

• The strong US dollar can go further in countries with weaker currencies.
• Americans looking for value in their travel plans may want to consider exchange rates.
• Here are some popular tourism destinations where the US dollar goes far right now.

The US dollar is strong right now, meaning Americans' spending in countries with weaker currencies could go further, making it a convenient time to consider taking that impromptu trip you've been dreaming about.

Some Americans are already seizing the moment.

"American travelers are looking for value right now," Amir Eylon, president and CEO of Longwoods International, a market research consultancy that specializes in the travel tourism industry, told Business Insider.

Historically, the value of currencies can influence travel behavior. A weaker currency generally attracts travelers, but makes it more expensive for the residents of that country to travel abroad. Likewise, a strong currency can raise outbound travel demand, but might deter international tourists from visiting that country.

Eylon said demand for leisure travel is still around record highs, but that more and more Americans say they are actively seeking out value and deals when they plan trips. A place with a weaker currency compared to the US dollar is one way to maximize that value.

Here are five popular tourism destinations where Americans can take advantage of the strong US dollar.

Japan

Japan is often considered an expensive destination for Americans due to the long flight and accompanying airfare, but the weak Japanese yen has fueled a surge in tourism and international travelers visiting the country.

Japan attracted a record number of tourists in the month of October, with 3.31 million visitors, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization.

As of writing, $1 was equal to about 150 Japanese yen.

Egypt

Egypt, a common bucket list travel destination, is among the countries where the US dollar goes the furthest right now, according to data compiled by NetVoucherCodes, a British travel deal site that analyzes exchange rate trends.

The strength of the US dollar compared to Egypt's currency has increased by 207.5% in the past five years, according to the site.

As of writing, $1 was equal to about 50 Egyptian pounds.

Argentina

Argentina's peso hit a record low this year, making it a cost-effective place for an inflation vacation, as The Wall Street Journal previously reported. An Airbnb spokesperson told the outlet the number of nights booked by Americans in Argentina increased by 40% in the first few months of the year.

The value of the US dollar against the Argentine peso has risen by $1,589% in the past five years, according to NetVoucherCodes.

As of writing, $1 was equal to about 1,012 Argentine pesos.

South Africa

South Africa's currency has also declined significantly in value compared to the US dollar, making the country's famous safaris potentially more affordable for wildlife lovers.

The exchange rate of the dollar to the South African rand is up about 23% over the past five years, according to NetVoucherCodes.

As of writing, $1 was equal to about 18 South African rands.

Brazil

The US dollar will also go further in Brazil, where the Brazilian real recently reached an all-time low. Tourists are taking advantage, with the country seeing record spending by foreign visitors in the first eight months of the year.

In the past year alone the exchange rate of the US dollar against the real rose by about 22%, according to NetVoucherCodes.

As of writing, $1 was equal to about 6 Brazilian reals.

• The United Arab Emirates experienced torrential rainfall and flash floods, beginning late Monday.
• Videos appear to show planes taxiing down flooded runways at Dubai International Airport. 
• Some blamed a practice to address water scarcity, but many meteorologists doubt that was the case.

Torrential rainfall pummeled the United Arab Emirates this week, resulting in flash floods that caused air travel chaos, closed schools, and deluged homes.

The rain began late Monday, flooding the UAE with more than half a foot (6.26 inches) of water in 24 hours, according to the Dubai Meteorological Office and cited by ABC News. That is more than two years' worth of rain in one day, the outlet noted.

There are claims that cloud seeding may have played a role in the flash floods. The practice sees planes inject clouds with chemicals that can increase rainfall. Scientists say it's unlikely cloud seeding caused the flooding, though.

One fatality was reported by police at the time of writing on Wednesday: A 70-year-old man died in Ras al-Khaimah when his vehicle was swept away in the flooding.

Flooding also occurred in Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. In Oman, 19 people died in flash floods, according to local media.

Dubai International Airport — recently named the most luxurious airport in the world — said planes were diverted. Some services now appear to have restarted.

Unverified videos on social media appeared to show heavily flooded tarmac, with large passenger airplanes creating waves and taxiing through several feet of water.

The airport did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider about the videos.

"We advise you NOT to come to the airport, unless absolutely necessary," an airport spokesperson wrote on X on Wednesday.

They added that planes continue to be delayed and diverted.

An unnamed couple told the AP that the situation at the airport is "absolute carnage," with some passengers sleeping there or at the Metro station.

Dubai recieved more than 5.6 inches of rain by Tuesday evening, around the amount it typically gets in a year and a half, according to Sky News.

It marks its heaviest rainfall in 75 years, according to a WAM news agency cited by Sky News.

In a post shared on X, the UAE's National Centre of Meteorology showed the regions that have been most affected.

The UAE has been cloud seeding since the '90s

While images of extreme flooding can show the consequences of the climate crisis, this particular event may have been worsened by a direct attempt to play rainmaker — literally.

To address water scarcity in the typically dry country, the UAE started using a practice referred to as cloud seeding in the 90s and early 2000s.

Cloud seeding is a method designed to increase the amount of water that falls from a cloud. It involves identifying suitable clouds and then using aircraft or ground-based generators to introduce a chemical agent that facilitates the production of snowflakes.

Cloud seeding has been used in countries worldwide, including in western US states dealing with drought, like California, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, and Texas.

The practice has long been controversial, with critics dismissing it as an attempt to "play God" or being potentially harmful to the environment or public health. Scientists have not documented the harmful impacts of cloud seeding, and recent studies have suggested that the practice works.

Ahmed Habib, a specialist meteorologist, told Bloomberg that the UAE's cloud seeding operations contributed directly to the heavy rainfall that fell this week.

Habib told the outlet that two planes conducted cloud seeding operations on Monday and Tuesday and that seven seeding missions had been carried out in two days.

Flight-tracking data analyzed by the AP suggested that an aircraft affiliated with the UAE's cloud-seeding project flew around the country Sunday.

"For any cloud that's suitable over the UAE you make the operation," Habib told Bloomberg.

The UAE's weather bureau said no cloud seeding had taken place during Tuesday's rain, according to the National News. It did not immediately respond to a request by BI for comment.

Chris England, a weather producer at Sky News, said he didn't believe cloud seeding to be a reason behind the floods, adding that evidence of it working was "pretty slim at best." Tomer Burg, an atmospheric-science researcher, told the Associated Press that days before the downpour, computer models forecast several inches of rain.

"When we talk about heavy rainfall, we need to talk about climate change. Focusing on cloud seeding is misleading," an Imperial College of London climate scientist, Friederike Otto, told the AP. "Rainfall is becoming much heavier around the world as the climate warms because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture."

Despite warning citizens to remain home during the heavy rain, the UAE government's press office said they were "rains of goodness," as the country has dealt with a rise in heat-related illnesses and deaths that some hope can be alleviated by an increase in rainfall.

Schools across the UAE continued to be closed on Wednesday, and employees are working from home, according to the Sky News report.

Correction: December 5, 2024 — This story was updated to better contextualize speculation linking cloud seeding to flooding in the UAE. Many scientists say it's unlikely cloud seeding had a role in the flooding.

• Salesforce's stock rose 10% after hours Tuesday after beating third-quarter revenue expectations.
• On the earnings call CEO Marc Benioff stressed the importance of digital labor and AI agents.
• Benioff said humans are already working with AI agents and that robots will be next.

The future is here and it's humans working alongside robots, according to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.

Salesforce reported its third-quarter earnings on Tuesday, beating revenue expectations and sending the stock price up around 10% as of market close on Wednesday.

During the earnings call, Benioff made it clear he's all in on Agentforce, the company's service that clients can use to build AI-powered agents. AI agents, which can operate computers and complete tasks that might otherwise require human hands, have been touted by some as the next big thing in generative AI.

Benioff seems to agree.

Agentforce became generally available in late October and allows companies to create their own custom AI agents. Benioff said the company delivered 200 deals in that first week and that he expects demand for AI agents to increase, calling Salesforce the "largest supplier of digital labor."

Benioff said some Salesforce clients already building out their digital labor force include FedEx, Adecco, Accenture, Ace Hardware, IBM, and RBC Wealth Managements.

Benioff said that in addition to humans working alongside AI agents, they'll soon be working alongside robots as well.

"On top of this agentic layer, we'll soon see a robotic layer as well where these agents will manifest into robots," he said, adding, "These agents are not tools. They are becoming collaborators."

Benioff has previously said he thought the "upper limits" of large language models, which power chatbots like ChatGPT, had been reached and that the future was AI agents.

Salesforce isn't the only tech company focusing on agents. Microsoft helps customers create agents through its AI studio, Copilot. Meta is working on agents, Google its making AI agents with Gemini, and Bloomberg recently reported OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, plans to launch AI agents next year.

Benioff also said on the earnings call that the rise in digital labor means "productivity is no longer tied to workforce growth, but to this intelligent technology that can be scaled without limits."

"This isn't just some far off future," he added, "It's happening right now."

• UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot in New York City on Wednesday, the police said.
• The NYPD said Thompson, 50, appeared to be killed in a targeted attack.
• Police on Monday arrested a "person of interest" identified as 26-year-old Luigi Mangione.

Police in Pennsylvania on Monday arrested a "person of interest" in connection to the fatal Midtown Manhattan shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

The 26-year-old man, identified as Luigi Mangione, was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and charged with local gun and forgery charges, New York Police Department officials said during a press conference.

Mangione was arraigned on Monday evening and charged on five counts, including two felonies: forgery, carrying a firearm without a license, tampering with records or identification, possessing instruments of crime, and false identification to law enforcement, according to a criminal complaint viewed by Business Insider. He was ordered held without bail.

Mangione was arrested after an employee at a McDonald's recognized him from the surveillance photos circulated by law enforcement and called the police. The complaint said Mangione was wearing a blue medical mask and looking at a laptop when Altoona police arrived.

Mangione had fake IDs, a US passport, and a gun and silencer "consistent with" the one thought to have been used by the gunman who killed Thompson, police said. The criminal complaint said the gun and silencer had been 3-D-printed.

NYPD officials said Mangione was also found with a three-page handwritten document that suggested "he has some ill will toward corporate America."

Mangione is expected to be extradited to New York to face additional charges, NYPD officials said.

The manhunt for Thompson's killer

The NYPD had released more than a half-dozen surveillance images of the man suspected to be the shooter in the December 4 attack in the hopes that tips from the public could help authorities track him down.

The latest photos of the man suspected of the shooting — which has been described by police as a targeted attack — included one showing him in the back of what appears to be a taxi, wearing a blue medical mask and a dark hood. Another image showed the man standing outside the vehicle's window wearing a mask, hood, and dark puffer jacket.

Moments after shooting Thompson dead in the heart of Manhattan Wednesday, police say the gunman fled the scene, first on foot and then on an electric bike, which he rode into Central Park. Police believe the shooter ultimately escaped New York City by bus.

Investigators believed the gunman caught a cab on Manhattan's Upper West Side and directed the driver to a bus station as he made his getaway following the shooting, Bloomberg reported.

Police officials told CNN they believed the man left New York City via the Port Authority's George Washington Bridge Bus Station in Washington Heights.

"We have video of him entering the Port Authority bus terminal. We don't have any video of him exiting, so we believe he may have gotten on a bus," NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said in a December 6 interview. "Those buses are interstate buses. That's why we believe he may have left New York City," Kenny said.

NYPD divers were seen over the weekend searching the waters in Central Park for any evidence in the shooting.

A law-enforcement source told CNN that investigators had found a backpack in Central Park that they believed belonged to the gunman. The backpack contained a Tommy Hilfiger jacket and Monopoly money, CNN reported, citing law-enforcement officials and sources.

It was not immediately clear if other items were found in the backpack.

Kenny said on December 6 that officials were investigating the possibility that the gunman may have used a veterinary gun, used on farms to euthanize large animals quietly, in the shooting, CNN reported.

A law-enforcement source previously told BI that the gun used by the shooter appeared to be equipped with a silencer, according to surveillance footage of the attack.

Most of the images that police have released of the man wanted in the shooting show him with a mask covering the bottom half of his face, except a set of two, which NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch called the "money shot," that showed the clearest images yet of the suspect unmasked.

"He's been traveling and walking around the streets of New York City largely in a mask, with his face covered. We had to go through lots of video evidence to get that one money shot with the mask down," Tisch told CNN in a December 6 interview.

Tisch said that police released the photos of the man not wearing a mask because they wanted a "wider audience to see the picture outside of New York City."

"We are right now processing a tremendous amount of evidence in this case," the NYPD commissioner told the news outlet, adding that authorities already have "lots of forensic evidence," including fingerprints and DNA evidence.

Police have called the killing of Thompson premeditated

Police have described Thompson's killing as "a brazen, targeted attack."

Thompson was set to speak at UnitedHealth Group's 8 a.m. investor conference on December 4 when a hooded gunman opened fire from behind, striking him at least once in the back and at least once in the right calf, the police said.

"Every indication is that this was a premeditated, pre-planned, targeted attack," Tisch told reporters at a press conference hours after the shooting.

"It appears the suspect was lying in wait for several minutes," Tisch added.

The NYPD offered a $10,000 reward for tips leading to the gunman's arrest, and the FBI said it was also offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the gunman's arrest and conviction.

Multiple reports said that authorities conducted forensic tests on a discarded cellphone, protein bar wrapper, and water bottle.

How the suspect arrived in New York is also becoming clearer.

Authorities believe he may have traveled to the city 10 days before the shooting on November 24 on a bus that originated in Atlanta and dropped him off at Manhattan's main bus depot, the Port Authority Bus Terminal. It was not yet clear where along the route he boarded the bus.

The Atlanta Police Department announced Friday that the NYPD contacted it and will provide assistance in the investigation as needed.

The unmasked images of the wanted man released by police were captured at a hostel on New York City's Upper West Side, a law enforcement official told CNN, when an employee asked the man to lower his face mask.

The Times, citing a senior law enforcement official, previously reported that the suspect in the shooting used a fake New Jersey ID to book a room at the hostel he was staying at in the days before the attack.

Retired NYPD homicide detective Salvatore Tudisco previously told BI that the photos showing the man's face were likely to speed up the manhunt.

Tudisco led the city's last big manhunt for a murdered CEO, Gokada founder Fahim Saleh, whose killer was captured in three days by traces on credit card, cellphone, and surveillance camera evidence.

"That's the best option — to send it across the country, and someone will know him," the ex-detective said of the latest images.

He added that a facial-recognition trace would be less of an option because the hostel surveillance images do not show the man's full face.

Investigators can still try to run the photo through state driver's license and arrest databases, Tudisco said. However, some states require a judge to issue a warrant before state driver's licenses can be used as evidence in an arrest and beyond.

Shooter was 'proficient in the use of firearms,' police said

Kenny said at the NYPD's press conference in the aftermath of the shooting that the gunman arrived on 6th Avenue about five minutes before Thompson. The shooter's weapon appeared to jam during the attack, he added.

"From watching the video, it does seem that he's proficient in the use of firearms, as he was able to clear the malfunctions pretty quickly," Kenny said.

Surveillance footage captured the incident, showing the gunman firing his weapon as Thompson, wearing a blue suit jacket, was walking several feet in front of him.

A law-enforcement source, who is not authorized to talk to the press, told Business Insider that the gun appeared to be equipped with a silencer. The source added that the gunman "definitely knew" where Thompson was going to be.

The police said officers found Thompson unconscious and unresponsive two minutes after the shooting. Emergency responders rushed him to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:12 a.m.

Police have not identified a motive

The shooting occurred blocks from Midtown holiday tourism landmarks, including Radio City Music Hall and Rockefeller Center, whose Christmas tree lighting took place on December 4.

In the aftermath of the shooting, six evidence cups were visible on the taped-off section of the sidewalk where the attack occurred.

"That's covering the shell casings," an officer at the scene told BI, declining to give their name because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

UnitedHealth Group canceled its "investor day" conference shortly after reports of the shooting broke.

Investigators have not yet determined a motive for the killing.

Kenny said investigators were combing through Thompson's social media and interviewing employees and family members and would be talking to law enforcement in Minnesota, where Thompson lived and where UnitedHealth Group and UnitedHealthcare are based.

Thompson's wife, Paulette Thompson, previously told NBC News in an interview that her husband had been receiving threats.

"Basically, I don't know, a lack of coverage?" she said. "I don't know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him."

The police department in his hometown of Maple Grove, Minnesota, told BI it hadn't been notified of any threats he might have received. Theresa Keehn, the Maple Grove police administrator, initially said Maple Grove had no record of calls for service to his house. Still, the department later said it had responded to a 2018 call from Paulette Thompson. An incident report said she had been walking to bed when she saw the front door deadbolt turn and grew afraid someone was inside the house. The police did not find anyone inside the home.

An unnamed senior law enforcement official told NBC News that shell cases found at the scene were inscribed with the words "deny," "defend," and "depose." BI has not independently confirmed the description of the evidence, and an NYPD spokesperson didn't return a request for comment.

Jay M. Feinman, an author and legal professor specializing in insurance law, torts, and contract law, wrote a similarly titled book "Delay Deny Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It."

The book is dubbed an exposé of insurance injustice and explains how people can be more careful when shopping for insurance policies and what to do when pursuing a disputed claim.

The NYPD said Thompson arrived in New York City on Monday and was staying at a hotel across the street from where he was shot.

Police in Maple Grove, Minnesota, told BI homes of Thompson and his wife in a suburb outside Minneapolis were targeted with fake bomb threats Wednesday evening, more than 13 hours after the shooting.

Thompson was remembered as a 'hardworking Midwest guy.'

Thompson spent 20 years at UnitedHealth Group and was CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the health-benefits unit, since April 2021.

While announcing his promotion, the company said Thompson would "drive continued growth across the global, employer, individual, specialty, and government benefits business while continuing the company's focus on ensuring access to high-quality, affordable healthcare."

Leaders in the healthcare industry shared their condolences in the hours after Thompson's death.

UnitedHealth's shares were broadly unchanged after the shooting. They've gained about 12% in the past 12 months, less than the 32% increase in the S&P 500, but outperforming competitors, including CVS Health, Humana, and Elevance Health. During its third-quarter results in October, it gave what UBS called a "more conservative than usual" outlook for fiscal 2025. Ahead of Wednesday's investor day, it gave more detailed guidance for next year, forecasting revenue of $450 billion to $455 billion and adjusted earnings of $29.50 to $30 a share. The company also suffered a ransomware attack that disrupted pharmacy deliveries earlier this year.

By the afternoon of the shooting, UnitedHealth Group had removed the names of its executives from its website, an archived version of its site shows. Some executives also appeared to have deleted their LinkedIn profiles, though it's unclear when.

Thompson had previously served as CEO of the group's government programs, running its programs for Medicare and Medicaid recipients.

Thompson's former brother-in-law, Bassel El-Kasaby, told Business Insider that Thompson was "a good guy, very successful and very humble — just a decent, hardworking Midwest guy."

"Whoever did this is a coward and a loser," El-Kasaby said.

Correction: December 4, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated Thompson's work history at United Health. He worked at the company for 20 years but was not an executive there for 20 years.

Update December 9, 2024: This story was updated with details on the arrest of a "person of interest" in the shooting.

• Elon Musk's SpaceX is now valued at $350 billion in the latest round of staff share purchases, Bloomberg reported.
• The deal doubles SpaceX's worth from a year ago.
• Elon Musk's net worth keeps rising following gains in Tesla stock and SpaceX's valuation.

Elon Musk's space transportation company has doubled its value in only a year.

SpaceX and approved investors will purchase up to $1.25 billion of employees' shares, valuing the company at about $350 billion, Bloomberg reported late Tuesday, citing an internal memo and unnamed sources.

SpaceX is offering to purchase as much as $500 million worth of common stock itself, according to the memo.

The $185 a share valuation is almost two-thirds higher than the $112 set in the last round of purchases less than three months ago, per Bloomberg.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

The deal is double the company's $175 billion valuation in December 2023. SpaceX shares were being sold at a valuation of $210 billion in June and $255 billion just last month, Bloomberg previously reported.

The company has long executed tender offers at fairly regular intervals. The arrangement allows employees to sell some of their shares, which often make up a significant part of their compensation, to SpaceX-approved investors.

The boost in valuation is another boost for Musk, whose net worth has reached record highs since Donald Trump was reelected president last month. Musk was worth $384 billion at Tuesday's close, up $155 billion this year, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Musk is set to work closely with the Trump administration as the co-leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory committee also known as DOGE.

His businesses are thriving from his close relationship with Trump as investors wager he will continue to play a leading role in the new administration in a phenomenon dubbed the "Trump bump."

Musk's AI startup, xAI, was reportedly valued at $50 billion in late November after raising more than $5 billion in a funding round.

Tesla has also enjoyed a major rally, with shares surging more than 60% this year. The EV maker's stock closed above $400 on Tuesday, putting it within touching distance of its record high of about $415, adjusted for stock splits.

• McKinsey, Bain, and BCG are top strategy consulting firms with low acceptance rates.
• These firms, known as MBB, serve Fortune 500 companies and offer competitive salaries.
• MBB firms provide prestigious exit opportunities, often leading to senior roles in various sectors.

McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company, and Boston Consulting Group — collectively referred to as MBB — are widely considered the top three strategy consulting firms in the world.

Sometimes referred to as the Big Three, MBB firms are among the most prestigious consulting firms and their clients include many Fortune 500 companies as well as government agencies.

CEOs often turn to these firms for their expertise in business strategy and solving complex problems, whether it's handling mergers and acquisitions or budgeting and cutting costs.

Jobs at MBB firms are famously difficult to land and are among the most sought-after positions for MBA students at top schools. The acceptance rates for these firms is less than 1%. Applicants to top business schools are also far more likely to be accepted into MBA programs if they come from an MBB.

MBB firms typically offer highly competitive salaries, generally paying more than other consulting firms, and often come with demanding work responsibilities and expectations.

MBB firms are also well known for the exit opportunities they provide — employees at these firms are highly sought after for other jobs and often end up with senior positions at Fortune 500 companies, startups, hedge funds, and private equity firms, or start their own companies.

The Big Three is sometimes confused with the Big Four, which refers to the professional services firms Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC. The Big Four are the largest accounting firms in the world though they also offer consulting and other services.

The MBB firms are strategy and management consulting firms. Here's how they compare.

McKinsey & Company

McKinsey is typically considered the most prestigious of the Big Three. It's also the oldest and was founded in 1926.

Headquartered in New York City, McKinsey is also the largest of the MBBs, with more than 45,000 employees across 130 offices worldwide.

McKinsey generated around $16 billion in revenue in 2023 and is led by Bob Sternfels, who serves as the firm's global managing partner and chair of the board of directors.

McKinsey told Business Insider it receives more than one million job applications each year and that the company planned to hire about 6,000 people in 2024, about the same as the year prior.

That would mean McKinsey hires around 0.6% of applicants.

McKinsey's average base salary for new hires out of undergrad is $112,000 and for MBAs $192,000, according to the company Management Consulted, which provides students with coaching for consulting interviews.

McKinsey is notorious for its demanding workload, with even entry-level analysts working 12 to 15 hours a day. One former employee told BI that the experience took a toll on her mental health but she came away with confidence and a Rolodex of contacts.

Boston Consulting Group

BCG was founded in Boston, where it is still headquartered, in 1963. The company had 32,000 employees as of 2023 and 128 offices worldwide.

BCG had a global revenue of about $12 billion in 2023.

BCG is led by Christoph Schweizer, who has served as CEO since 2021, and Rich Lesser, the Global Chair of the firm.

BCG's head of talent, Amber Grewal, told BI more than one million people apply to work at the company each year and that only 1% make the cut.

Amid the boom in generative AI the firm is hiring for a wider mix of roles than it did in years past. "It's going to change the mix of people and expertise that we need," Alicia Pittman, BCG's global people team chair previously told BI.

The average base salary at BCG for hires out of undergrad was $110,000 in 2023 and about $190,000 for MBAs and PhDs, according to Management Consulted.

Bain & Company

Bain was founded in 1973 and is also headquartered in Boston.

The smallest of the Big Three, Bain has around 19,000 employees with offices in 65 cities around the world.

Bain's revenue in 2023 reached $6 billion, according to the Financial Times.

Bain is helmed by Christophe De Vusser, who serves as the worldwide managing partner and CEO.

Bain's average base salary for undergrads in the US is around $90,000, while for new hires with an MBA or PhD it was around $165,000, according to Management Consulted.

Despite the grueling hours and high expectations, Bain is known for a collaborative culture.

"We have a motto, 'A Bainie never lets another Bainie fail,'" Davis Nguyen, a former consultant at the firm, previously told BI. "We all work together from entry-level associate consultants to senior partners. I think that is what makes Bain's culture what it is — that we all work together to achieve a goal and make everyone around us better."

Bain is also considered the "frattiest" of the top firms and is known for a "work hard, play hard" culture, according to Management Consulted.

• International tourist arrivals in 2024 have nearly reached pre-pandemic levels.
• Concerns about overtourism and poor management are growing in historic cities and beach locales.
• Fodor's 2025 "No List" highlights destinations under unsustainable tourism pressures.

People around the world are traveling more than ever, with international tourist arrivals in the first half of 2024 just about reaching pre-pandemic levels — and destinations around the world are feeling the pinch.

From tiny, historic, European cities that welcome thousands more people than they were built to hold to picturesque beach locales littered with plastic, concerns about overtourism and poor tourism management are increasingly widespread.

Fodor's, a longstanding travel-guide company, compiles an annual list of destinations where the pressures of tourism are being felt most. The company's 2025 "No List" includes destinations that have long had problems managing tourism levels, as well as newer ones or places where the situation is expected to worsen.

"The No List serves to highlight destinations where tourism is placing unsustainable pressures on the land and local communities. And these stresses need to be addressed," Fodor's said.

The company said it does not advocate for travel boycotts against these locations, but that it believed the problems needed to be called out so that they could be addressed.

Overtourism experts previously told Business Insider that one of the primary challenges locations like this face is that tourists tend to visit the exact same places at the same time. For busy destinations, they instead recommended trying to visit on the off or shoulder seasons. They also stressed the importance of being responsible tourists and respecting all local laws.

Bali, Indonesia

Bali draws millions of visitors each year but the high levels of tourism have taken a toll on Bali's natural landscapes and contributed to plastic pollution. There have also been concerns about poor behavior from tourists, with authorities now handing out a "dos and don'ts" list to visitors. In September Indonesia announced it was putting a pause on the construction of new hotels in Bali to address overtourism.

Barcelona, Spain

Tourism levels in Barcelona have contributed to high housing prices and costs of living, with thousands of locals holding protests against tourism on several occasions this year. Some demonstrators this summer even shot water guns at tourists. Officials in Barcelona placed some limits on short-term rentals in 2021 and have said they plan to ban all of them by 2028.

Mallorca, Spain

Thousands of people in Mallorca, Spain, have also protested against overtourism this year, saying many locals can no longer afford to live on the island and demanding more tourism limits.

Canary Islands, Spain

The anti-tourism protests that swept Spain have also played out in the Canary Islands, where authorities this year said they planned to add new regulations and limits on short-term rentals.

Venice, Italy

Venice, Italy, has also take measures to address overtourism, which has filled its tiny, historic streets with huge crowds and made the city barely livable according to locals. Last year Venice announced it would charge day-trip visitors about $5 to enter the city center on certain days. This year officials announced they were limiting tourist groups to 25 people and banning the use of loudspeakers on tours.

Lisbon, Portugal

In addition to the locations in Spain and Venice, Fodor's said Lisbon, Portugal, was among the European cities where locals have expressed not wanting tourists to visit. An estimated 60% of units in the city are used for vacationers, according to the outlet, as housing prices have soared.

Koh Samui, Thailand

Koh Samui, Thailand, has already experienced negative impacts from overtourism. The area is struggling to deal with high amounts of garbage and wastewater from tourism developments. But Fodor's said the island's tourism problems are expected to worsen after the 2025 release of the new season of HBO's "The White Lotus," which was partially filmed at the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui.

Mount Everest

Despite being among the most difficult places to reach on Earth, Mount Everest is not immune to the negative impacts of tourism. The highest mountain on Earth has been littered with frozen garbage and experienced long lines on the path to the summit. The last living member of the first team to reach Mount Everest's summit in 1953 said earlier this year the large crowds have resulted in a concerning amount of garbage.

Agrigento, Sicily, Italy

Agrigento, a coastal town in Sicily, is dealing with a water crisis on top of tourism concerns. While local homes and businesses scramble to conserve water, the city if also bracing for a boost of tourism that is expected next year when it will be named the Italian Capital of Culture in 2025. Though the city's economy relies on tourism, an increase in visitors could worsen its water shortages.

British Virgin Islands

Tourism is crucial to the economy of the British Virgin Islands, but locals have expressed frustration over a lack of a comprehensive plan to address tourism levels, especially from cruise ships, according to Fodor's. Some locals say high numbers of visitors are overwhelming local resources but that some visitors aren't staying long enough to significantly contribute to the economy.

Kerala, India

Kerala, India, known for its beaches and backwaters, is struggling with pollution, waste, and deforestation in part driven by tourism. A surge in unregulated developments in order to keep up with tourism demand is also exacerbating natural disasters, like landslides, Fodor's said.

Kyoto, Japan

Officials in Kyoto have taken several measures to combat overcrowding and bad behavior from tourists. Kyoto banned tourists from visiting some streets in Gion, the city's Geisha district, in response to tourists harassing the geishas.

Tokyo, Japan

Rising visitor numbers have contributed to overcrowding and a strain on resources in Tokyo, Japan's largest city. Japan is currently dealing with a boom in tourism in part due to the weak yen, which is making visits seem more affordable to foreigners.

Oaxaca, Mexico

Oaxaca, Mexico, has experienced a 77% increase in tourism since 2020, according to Fodor's. Local residents, who are increasingly being displaced from their homes, have protested against tourism levels, which are contributing to high housing costs and gentrification.

Scotland North Coast 500

Scotland's North Coast 500 is an iconic scenic driving route that's dealt with a major influx of visitors over the past several years. The higher levels of tourism have led to congested roads and a problem with "wild camping," where visitors camp in areas without proper facilities and often leave behind garbage, scorched earth from campfires, and even feces. Local officials have focused on tourist education to address the issues, encouraging them to sign a Visitor Pledge.

• Robby Starbuck has led pressure campaigns against "woke policies" at huge companies.
• Walmart was the latest company to roll back some DEI initiatives after working with Starbuck.
• The director-turned-activist has amassed a large social-media following.

"Robby Starbuck gets Walmart to end woke policies," reads the thumbnail on one of the latest Instagram videos from conservative activist Robby Starbuck.

Starbuck was announcing the latest win in his often-successful pressure campaigns against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at major companies.

Starbuck said after he told Walmart, the US's largest private employer, that he was investigating them the company worked with him and agreed to end some of their DEI practices.

A Walmart spokesperson told Business Insider that while some of the changes had been in the works for a while, some of them were attributable to Starbuck.

The anti-DEI activist has amassed a following on social media — 360,000 on Instagram and 719,000 on X — where he blasts companies with "woke policies" such as requiring racial sensitivity training or sponsoring LGBTQ-focused youth camps.

Other companies he's targeted that have also pulled back on their DEI initiatives include Ford, John Deere, Tractor Supply Company, Molson Coors, Lowe's, and Harley-Davidson.

He's part of a new and highly influential conservative media landscape that emerged in the run-up to President-elect Donald Trump's decisive victory.

A recent Pew Research Center study found around 21% of American adults said they consume news on social media from so-called "news influencers." The study also found news influencers were slightly more likely to identify as Republican, conservative, or pro-Trump than as the left-leaning equivalents.

Media personalities like Starbuck are expected to play a larger role in news and election coverage, which have previously been dominated by legacy media organizations. Starbuck, for his part, intends to ramp up his efforts heading into the busy shopping season.

"No industry should feel safe," Starbuck told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month. "As we head into Christmas, I will likely turn my sights to retailers who depend on the majority of Americans who just elected Trump with the popular vote."

Starbuck has said in social media posts that he worked in Hollywood prior to his activism, directing music videos and other projects. But over time he said he grew increasingly disturbed by the industry and ended up moving with his wife and kids to Tennessee in 2018.

"They'll throw society and our kids under the bus to stay famous and keep the money flowing," Starbuck said in a post about his experiences in Hollywood. "The best thing we can do is recognize the game that's being played to destroy our culture and stop idolizing people who don't care about you."

Starbuck told the Journal he has always voted for Republicans but that he became more socially conservative over time. Starbuck frequently says in his videos that what he wants is "corporate neutrality" — for companies to avoid being political.

Elon Musk has reshared Starbuck's content to his millions of followers on X. So have the companies he's targeted and even ones he hasn't yet. The owner of a business in the DEI space wrote in Fast Company earlier this month that some of her clients had canceled contracts because their company leadership was worried about being targeted by Starbuck.

In addition to his social media content, Starbuck along with his wife, Landon Starbuck, produced a documentary released in February 2024 called "The War on Children."

Starbuck has said he will continue to pressure to companies to end their DEI policies.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal's podcast in August, Starbuck said, "I've been described as a dog with a bone. I'm not going to let go of it. Even half measures are really not good enough for me, but I will be the greatest champion of a company that does the right thing, because I think that ultimately it's part of the path back to sanity for our country as a whole."

A representative for Starbuck did not provide comment to Business Insider by the time of publication.