• Bidding has closed on a 1901 mansion where Oleg Cassini designed fashions for Jacqueline Onassis.
• On Wednesday, a bankruptcy judge approved a $34.5 million top bid for the Gilded Age townhouse.
• Look inside the Beaux-Arts beauty and read about its contentious, sometimes violent history.

A 20-room Gilded Age mansion, once the atelier of fashion designer Oleg Cassini, is under contract at a bargain discount: $34.5 million.

A federal bankruptcy judge signed off on the mystery buyer’s winning bid on Wednesday, approving a price tag for the 18,000-square-foot Manhattan townhouse that’s nearly half the original asking price of two years ago.

The bankruptcy — in which two octogenarian sisters, one of them Cassini’s widow, were forcibly removed from the home by federal Marshals — caps a history of transformation.

Built steps from Fifth Avenue’s “Millionaire’s Row” as a stockbroker’s statement mansion in 1901, the stately limestone home was subdivided into apartments throughout the ’60s and ’70s.

And before his death in 2006, Cassini sketched wardrobes for longtime client Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by the light of a towering window spanning the six-story home’s two topmost floors.

As the new buyer prepares to move in as early as next month, let’s take a look at the stunning rooms and tumultuous history of 15 East 63rd Street.

The 125-year history of the House of Cassini begins and ends with unwelcome intrusions.

For all its serene style, the story of the House of Cassini begins and ends with a violent forced entry.

Its first owner, a millionaire broker and banker, was bludgeoned and robbed by armed burglars who broke in soon after his Beaux-Arts beauty was built.

A century later, its most recent owner — Cassini’s 85-year-old sister-in-law, Peggy Nestor — would be physically pulled from the home by federal Marshals, who busted open the brass front door to enforce a bankruptcy judge’s 2024 eviction order.

“They put me on the street in a robe!” Cassini’s widow, Marianne Cassini, also in her 80s, told the judge of being evicted along with her sister and their niece.

The sisters battled in the courts for a decade to manage rising debts.

For the past decade, the two sisters have battled in state and federal court to keep the home they purchased together in 1984, 12 years after Marianne’s secret marriage to the designer (the union was revealed only after Cassini’s death). Nestor, Cassini’s sister-in-law, took sole title in 2016, according to court papers.

The sisters ultimately lost their battle against the eviction and the bankruptcy judge’s final 2024 order that the home be sold to satisfy more than $30 million of Nestor’s mortgage debts and liens.

“Enough, enough, enough — we’re done,” a frustrated-sounding Judge Michael E. Wiles told the protesting sisters in approving the sale at a hearing on Wednesday.

“It’s in the court file, for heaven’s sake,” Wiles said, rejecting the pair’s repeated claim that they remain co-owners and that rent-stabilization laws somehow bar their eviction from the single-family residence.

In the two years since the eviction, the home’s sale price had plummeted — from $65 million under Sotheby’s International Realty, to $39.5 million under its latest listing with Brown Harris Stevens, to the current $34.5 million purchase agreement.

First stop on our look inside: an ornate and unusual vestibule.

Before diving into the home’s tumultuous history and tranquil interior, it’s worth pausing at the front door, where the original vestibule still greets visiting guests.

Built of curving marble, brass, and glass, the unusual structure served as an airlock — a buffer against the cold in a home warmed by 14 fireplaces.

Marble, glass, and brass bend together to frame the vestibule.

In the summer, the vestibule helps keep in the central air conditioning, a much later and controversial addition.

In 2006, next-door-neighbor Neil Diamond sued Nestor, saying her new rooftop cooling unit illegally added 13 feet to the height of her building.

The “Sweet Caroline” and “Song Sung Blue” singer sought $2 million in damages for the obstruction of views from his terrace. They settled for an undisclosed sum in 2010.

The 1901 mansion was a wealthy stockbroker’s statement home, steps from Manhattan’s “Millionaire’s Row.”

The home’s story begins with Wall Street stockbroker Elias Asiel, who purchased 15 East 63rd Street in 1885 as a new Victorian brownstone.

Asiel had grander plans. He hired one of the top architects of the day, John H. Duncan, to reimagine the 25-foot-wide property as a limestone-clad mansion to rival any on the nearby stretch of Fifth Avenue known as “Millionaire’s Row.”

Duncan had just finished the General Grant National Memorial — a mausoleum for the 17th president and Civil War hero, overlooking the Hudson River — when he went to work for Asiel in 1897.

Entering Duncan’s design tour-de-force, guests can cross a 46-foot, marble-tiled gallery to an oval-shaped dining room, or climb a sweeping, curved staircase to the parlor level.

The dining room was the first stop for a pair of burglars in a 1906 break-in.

The dining room, enclosed by pocket doors, mirrors, and fading, carved wood paneling, played a role in a 1906 break-in that left Asiel bloodied and bereft of his silverware.

The pre-dawn, gunpoint robbery was front-page news. “Elias Asiel Pounded Insensible with Brass Knuckles in Bedroom,” blared a headline in the evening edition of the Sun.

According to accounts in four city newspapers, the two robbers broke into the basement service door with a saw and a diamond glass-cutting blade.

Awakened upstairs in bed, Asiel was no easy mark.

He got in a good punch or two before being beaten with brass knuckles and bound at the wrists and ankles “with stout pieces of cord.”

He also refused to give up the combination to his safe, which contained “a fortune in gems” — heirloom jewelry he would bequeath to his daughter, asleep one floor up.

Struggling free in his bedroom, Asiel cut short the robbery.

“Would one of you please wipe the blood out of my eyes?” the trussed broker asked as the pair ransacked his bedroom.

The younger burglar paused to wet a cloth in the adjoining bathroom and gently wiped Asiel’s eyes, an act of kindness that later swayed a judge to impose a mere five-year sentence.

The robbers pocketed Asiel’s $250 gold watch, 12 of his pearl-and-sapphire scarf pins, and $90 in cash. They then headed back downstairs to the dining room, where they’d left Asiel’s silver in a pile to grab on the way out.

The two managed to pack up just three dozen forks and four dozen spoons when they were interrupted. Wriggling free of his ties, Asiel pulled a bedside bell cord to wake the seven sleeping servants, and was shouting for help out the window.

The thieves fled into nearby Central Park, leaving most of the silver on the sideboard. They were caught and convicted some two years later.

On the second floor — a library and drawing room.

The mansion’s two most exquisite spaces — a wood-clad library and a bright drawing room — are at either end of the mansion’s second level, the “parlor floor,” where the ceilings are 17 feet high.

The wood and marble-clad library faces the front of the building, its two tall arching windows overlooking leafy East 63rd Street.

The library’s ceiling is the nesting site of four pairs of winged and clever cherubs.

Photos of the library show no bookshelves. But there is reading material, if you’re a cherub.

Pairs of the erudite tykes roost in each corner of the elaborately coffered ceiling, holding scrolls enscribed in Latin.

“Malo Esse Quam Videri,” reads one, paraphrasing Cicero — “I would rather be than seem.”

The drawing room is a bright sanctuary.

The second-floor drawing room is a bright sanctuary where sunlight from the terrace floods inside through two French doors and alights mirror to mirror.

The room resembles an intricate wedding cake, frosted with garlands of roses.

A profusion of plasterwork decorates the ceiling and walls, ringing the space in garlands of budding and full-flower blooms.

The effect is like standing inside a wedding cake, under a rose bower, and enclosed by a house of mirrors all at once.

“Elegance upon elegance upon elegance,” Louise Beit, the mansion’s previous broker, enthused of the drawing room, in a YouTube tour of the home last year.

A spacious gallery connects the library and drawing room, and features a balcony for “string quartets” to perform.

A spacious gallery connects the second floor’s library and drawing room.

“Standing here in the gallery, you can feel how they love lavish entertaining in the Gilded Age,” said Beit, of Sotheby’s International Realty.

“You can greet your guests at the top of the steps with a string quartet entertaining you from the balcony.”

Asiel died in his bedroom in 1920, at age 69.

Asiel and his two children — his daughter would marry a Bloomingdale — enjoyed the mansion through the nineteen-teens.

In 1920, a year after his retirement, the broker died at home at age 69, missing the stock market crash by nine years.

The robbery was his most lasting claim to fame. His obituary in The New York Times noted that he “gained high praise from the police for his coolness and bravery in a single-handed battle with two burglars.”

In the ’60s and ’70s, the home was divided into seven rent-stabilized apartments.

City records show that in the ’60s and ’70s, the home was owned by a California development company and had been divided into seven rent-stabilized apartments.

In 1984, it was purchased by Nestor and Marianne Cassini, the designer’s secret wife.

The sisters spent the next 30 years taking out mortgages, renovating, evicting the old tenants, and running the designer’s businesses — Oleg Cassini, Inc. and Cassini Parfums, Ltd., both in receivership since 2015.

The winning, anonymous bidder pledged $34.5 million and may need to spend many millions more to renovate.

The next owner — named only as “15 East 63rd Street, LLC” in court papers — is now poised to inherit an architectural gem, rich in history and potential.

“It appears that it has been a significant number of years since the townhouse was last comprehensively renovated,” Brown Harris Stevens broker Sami Hassoumi said in a court document on Tuesday.

The mystery buyer’s architect estimates that fully renovating the home will cost $25 million and take three to four years, Hassoumi said.

• SpaceX shut down Russian troops’ access to Starlink satellite-internet terminals.
• The change constrained Russian military capabilities and created opportunities for Ukrainian forces.
• In the days following the shutdown, Ukraine recaptured roughly 77 square miles in the country’s southeast.

This story originally ran in Welt and appears on Business Insider through the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.

“All we’ve got left now,” the Russian soldier said, “are radios, cables and pigeons.”

A decision earlier this month by SpaceX to shut down access to Starlink satellite-internet terminals caused immediate chaos among Russian forces who had become increasingly reliant upon the Elon Musk-owned company’s technology to sustain their occupation of Ukraine, according to radio transmissions intercepted by a Ukrainian reconnaissance unit and shared with the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, to which POLITICO and Business Insider belong.

The communications breakdown significantly constrained Russian military capabilities, creating new opportunities for Ukrainian forces. In the days following the shutdown, Ukraine recaptured roughly 77 square miles in the country’s southeast, according to calculations by the news agency Agence France-Presse based on data from the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

SpaceX began requiring verification of Starlink terminals on Feb. 4, blocking unverified Russian units from accessing its services. Almost immediately, Ukrainian eavesdroppers heard Russian soldiers complaining about the failure of “Kosmos” and “Sinka” — apparently code names for Starlink satellite internet and the messaging service Telegram.

“Damn it! Looks like they’ve switched off all the Starlinks,” one Russian soldier exclaimed. “The connection is gone, completely gone. The images aren’t being transmitted,” another shouted.

Dozens of the recordings were played for Axel Springer Global Reporter Network reporters in an underground listening post maintained by the Bureviy Brigade in northeastern Ukraine. Neither SpaceX nor the Russian Foreign Ministry responded to requests for comment.

“On the Russian side, we observed on the very day Starlink was shut down that artillery and mortar fire dropped drastically. Drone drops and FPV attacks also suddenly decreased,” said a Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance operator from the Bureviy Brigade who would agree to be identified only by the call sign Mustang, referring to first-person view drones. “Coordination between their units has also become more difficult since then.”

The satellite internet network has become a crucial tool on the battlefield, sustaining high-tech drone operations and replacing walkie-talkies in low-tech combat. Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, which destroyed much of Ukraine’s traditional communications infrastructure, Western governments have provided thousands of the Starlink units to Kyiv.

With the portable terminals, there is no need to lay kilometers of cable that can be damaged by shelling or drone strikes. Drone footage can be transmitted in real time to command posts, artillery and mortar fire can be corrected with precision, and operational information can be shared instantly via encrypted messaging apps such as Signal or Telegram.

At the outset of the Russian invasion, Starlink access gave Ukraine’s defenders a decisive operational advantage. Those in besieged Mariupol sent signs of life in spring 2022 via the backpack-size white dishes, and army units used them to coordinate during brutal house-to-house fighting in Bakhmut in 2023.

Satellite internet became “one of, if not the most important components” of Ukraine’s way of war, according to military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady, an adviser to European governments and security agencies who regularly visits Ukrainian units. “Starlink constituted the backbone of connectivity that enabled accelerated kill chains by helping create a semi-transparent battlefield.”

The operational advantages of Starlink did not go unnoticed by Russian forces. By the third year of the war, Starlink terminals were increasingly turning up in Russian-occupied territory. One of the first documented cases surfaced in January 2024 in the Serebryansky forest. Month by month, Ukrainian reconnaissance drones spotted more of the devices.

The Ukrainian government subsequently contacted Musk’s company, urging it to block Russian access to the network. Mykhailo Fedorov, then digital minister and now defense minister, alleged Russian forces were acquiring the devices via third countries. “Ukraine will continue using Starlink, and Russian use will be restricted to the maximum extent possible,” Fedorov pledged in spring 2024.

Yet Russian use of the terminals continued to grow throughout 2025, and their use was not limited to artillery or drone units. Even Russian infantry soldiers were carrying mini Starlink terminals in their backpacks.

“We found Starlink terminals at virtually every Russian position along the contact line,” said Mustang. “At some point, it felt like the Russians had more devices than we did.”

In the listening post this month, he scrolled through more than a dozen images from late 2025 showing Russian Starlink terminals set up between trees or beside the entrances to their positions.

“We targeted their positions deliberately,” Mustang continued. “But even if we destroyed a terminal in the morning or evening, a new one was already installed by the next morning.”

In the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian city of Kreminna, there was even a shop where soldiers could buy Starlink terminals starting in 2024. According to Ukrainian officials, these devices were not registered in Russia.

SpaceX’s move in early February to enforce a stricter verification system effectively cut off unregistered Starlink terminals operating in Russian-occupied areas. Only devices approved and placed on a Ukrainian Ministry of Defense “whitelist” remained active, while terminals used by Russian forces were remotely deactivated.

“That’s it, basically no one has internet at all,” a Russian soldier said in one of the messages played for Axel Springer reporters. “Everything’s off, everything’s off.”

The temporary shutdown allowed Ukraine to slow the momentum of Vladimir Putin’s forces, although the localized counteroffensives do not represent a fundamental shift along the front. Soldiers from other Ukrainian units, including the Black Arrow battalion, confirmed the military consequences of the Starlink outage for Russian forces in their sectors in interviews with the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.

By mid-February, Russian shelling had increased again, though largely against frontline positions that had long been identified and precisely mapped — suggesting that Russia has yet to fully restore all of its lost capabilities.

Now, analysts from the Bureviy Brigade say Russian forces are scrambling for alternatives. They have been forced to rely far more heavily on radio communication, according to Mustang, which creates additional opportunities for interception.

Russian units will likely attempt to switch to their own satellite terminals. But their speed and connection quality are significantly lower, Mustang says. And because of their size, the devices are difficult to conceal.”The shutdown of Starlink, even if only of limited effect for now, highlights the limited ability of the Russian armed forces to rapidly implement ongoing cycles of innovation,” said Col. Markus Reisner of the Austrian Armed Forces. “This could represent a potential point of leverage for Western supporters to provide swift and sustainable support to Ukraine at this stage.”

Ibrahim Naber is a chief reporter at Welt.

• I chose a more expensive neighborhood because it’s dog-friendly.
• I pay $4,700 a month in rent to prioritize my dogs’ quality of life.
• Moving to a different ZIP code gave us a more walkable, community-centered life.

I’ve learned that there are three types of dog owners in the world: those who have dogs but treat them like pets with basic needs, those who absolutely love their dogs and spoil them, and those who treat their dogs like children.

I’m proudly in the third category.

I grocery shop for my dogs so I can home-cook their meals. I buy them Christmas presents, post photos of them on their Instagram account to more than 12,000 followers (whom I reply to on their behalf), take them to photoshoots and brand partnerships, and got them European passports so I can take them on vacation with me.

Not only that, but I play Bluey, SpongeBob SquarePants, and meditation music for them while I’m busy working to keep them entertained. I let them lick my vanilla ice-cream cone, and they sleep in my bed, cuddled under the covers at night.

But all of those things directly align with my lifestyle and the tasks I already do regularly; however, six months ago, I did the most drastic thing in my life for their benefit. I moved zip codes, prioritizing their well-being.

I chose a neighborhood where I could walk with them everywhere

Last year, while deciding where to move, I focused on finding a neighborhood where I could walk almost everywhere and bring them with me, while feeling safe walking at any hour of the day or night. After researching the best neighborhoods in the city for dog parents, all signs pointed to Coral Gables — one of the most expensive and also most dog-friendly areas in Miami.

Moving to Coral Gables from Doral meant switching from an apartment with a $2,500 monthly rent to one with a $4,700 a month rent. While that is a drastic shift in rent pricing I’m choosing to make, given my current priorities and the lifestyle I want my dogs to have, it makes sense. People always say, “You’re paying for the location,” and quite frankly, that’s never felt more true to me.

Many of the residential buildings in Coral Gables allow pets, which takes the stress off people who need to move but can’t find dog-friendly places. Since the dog culture is so pronounced in this part of Miami, many buildings make it acceptable to have more than one dog.

I moved from Europe to Florida with my dogs

I lived in Europe for nearly five years — three of them in London, then the South of France, and finally Rome — before moving back to Florida in 2022. While in London, I became a dog mom after someone gifted me Bentley for Christmas.

During my time in Europe, I never owned a car because public transportation made getting around effortless. When I moved to Miami, that was what I missed most. Since moving back, I’ve been eager for something that comes as close as possible to the life I lived in Europe, with the dog-friendly energy that comes with it.

My French Bulldogs have many special needs. Being brachycephalic, they can only walk at certain temperatures, which means our walks have to happen during specific hours of the day so it’s not too hot. They also need to maintain a healthy weight, since excess weight can affect their backs and ligaments. Frenchies are prone to skin allergies as well, which I’ve never seen manifest in mine — and I credit that to their fully home-cooked diet.

While we often get compliments at the vet for being among “the healthiest Frenchies” they’ve ever seen, that level of care comes with real responsibility and sacrifice. Owning a French Bulldog means shaping your lifestyle around its health and wellness needs. I never planned to have this breed, but life had other plans, and I ended up with two that I love with my whole heart.

They’re my buddies, my besties, and I’m grateful I found a place in Miami that makes me miss Europe a little less — while giving me more time to simply be with them and involve them in my daily activities.

• Larry Summers is retiring from Harvard amid Epstein email fallout and ongoing investigations.
• Emails reveal Larry Summers sought advice from Jeffrey Epstein on a romantic relationship.
• Harvard is continuing to investigate Summers’ ties to Epstein.

Former US Treasury Secretary and Harvard University President Larry Summers is leaving his position as a professor at the elite university, he said in a statement on Wednesday.

“I have made the difficult decision to retire from my Harvard professorship at the end of this academic year,” Summers said in a statement. “I will always be grateful to the thousands of students and colleagues I have been privileged to teach and work with since coming to Harvard as a graduate student 50 years ago.”

The retirement is the latest fallout for Summers over his relationship with the now-dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Files released by the Justice Department and House Oversight Committee in recent months shed new light on Summers’ relationship with Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Epstein pleaded guilty to less severe sex offenses in 2008.

Emails show the former Treasury Secretary sought Epstein’s advice on pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman he described as a mentee. Summers also made a sexist remark about women’s intelligence in his emails with Epstein.

Epstein, in one email, called himself Summers’ “wingman.”

A Harvard University spokesperson said Wednesday that Summers also resigned as the co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, a research center.

Summers has been on leave from his teaching duties at Harvard since November and will remain on leave until the end of the academic year, the university spokesperson said.

Summers said in his own statement that he planned to continue working — just not as a Harvard professor.

“Free of formal responsibility, as President Emeritus and a retired professor, I look forward in time to engaging in research, analysis, and commentary on a range of global economic issues,” Summers said.

Harvard announced in November that it opened a new investigation into Epstein’s relationship with Summers. That review remains “ongoing,” the university spokesperson said.

Last year, Summers was barred from the American Economic Association and resigned from the OpenAI board over his relationship with Epstein.

• Property taxes are among the many factors to consider when buying a home in the US.
• New Jersey has the highest property tax rate, which is nearly eight times the country’s lowest.
• Hawaii has the lowest real estate taxes in the country, despite having the highest-valued homes.

Owning a home is increasingly feeling more out of reach for many Americans.

One of the many factors that add to the pressures and challenges of homeownership is the ongoing cost of property taxes, which persists even after a property is paid off.

For some, property taxes are little more than an afterthought, while for others, they can be a significant financial setback on top of mortgage or insurance payments.

A recent WalletHub study looked at the tax burden of owning real estate across the US and ranked all 50 states by the effective tax rate paid by homeowners in the state. The study used data from the US Census Bureau.

“Property taxes represent a recurring cost that can significantly affect financial planning, savings capacity, and long-term affordability,” Mitchell Franklin, an accounting professor at Le Moyne College in New York, said in the study. “Even if a home’s purchase price appears manageable, high property taxes can dramatically increase the overall cost of ownership and strain household budgets.”

Across the country, states like New Jersey and Illinois top the charts with the highest tax rates of 2.11% and 2.01% respectively.

In New Jersey, the owners of a home priced at the state’s median home value, which in the state is $454,400, pay an annual $9,590.

Meanwhile, in states like Alabama, which has the second-lowest real estate tax rate in the country, the owners of a home at the state’s median home value, which in this case is $209,900, pay about $788 each year.

These 20 US states have the lowest real estate tax rates. See how they rank.

20. Virginia

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.73%

State median home value: $383,700

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $2,790

18. (tie) Montana

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.72%

State median home value: $375,800

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $2,693

18. (tie) Mississippi

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.72%

State median home value: $169,800

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $1,215

16. (tie) New Mexico

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.70%

State median home value: $248,100

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $1,731

16. (tie) California

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.70%

State median home value: $734,700

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $5,124

15. North Carolina

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.66%

State median home value: $288,900

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $1,896

14. Wyoming

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.57%

State median home value: $309,700

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $1,767

12. (tie) Louisiana

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.55%

State median home value: $216,500

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $1,180

12. (tie) Arkansas

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.55%

State median home value: $188,000

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $1,040

11. West Virginia

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.53%

State median home value: $162,600

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $865

10. Utah

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.52%

State median home value: $489,400

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $2,525

8. (tie) Delaware

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.50%

State median home value: $352,000

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $1,768

8. (tie) Tennessee

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.50%

State median home value: $286,700

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $1,442

7. Idaho

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.49%

State median home value: $418,600

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $2,038

4. (tie) Arizona

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.48%

State median home value: $394,500

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $1,879

4. (tie) Colorado

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.48%

State median home value: $539,400

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $2,602

4. (tie) South Carolina

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.48%

State median home value: $259,000

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $1,251

3. Nevada

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.47%

State median home value: $435,400

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $2,027

2. Alabama

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.38%

State median home value: $209,900

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $788

1. Hawaii

Effective real estate tax rate: 0.27%

State median home value: $839,100

Annual taxes on a home with a state median value: $2,239

• Longevity guru Bryan Johnson likened social media’s impact on mental health to air pollution.
• Johnson said he’s now doing social media “fasts” for his health.
• A solution he proposes: using AI to filter harmful content from social media feeds.

Bryan Johnson, fresh off a 40- and 70-hour social media fast, says he’s ready to put an AI buffer between him and his social feed.

In a post on X, the 48-year-old entrepreneur and biohacker compared social media to pollution and water toxins.

“Like other toxins, it accumulates,” he wrote. “You can’t unsee or unfeel what you’ve consumed. It settles into mental tissue like heavy metals, producing chronic low-grade inflammation.”

Eliminating social media entirely isn’t realistic, he wrote.

“‘Just put the phone down’ is as practical as telling someone in 19th-century London to stop breathing coal smoke,” he wrote.

Johnson said time away from the apps is the “only remedy,” but he also suggested that AI agents could serve as an antidote to social media.

“An AI layer between you and the feed. Filtering rage, removing vanity metrics and translating sensationalism into calm, factual language. Preserving signal and eliminating noise,” he wrote.

“I never want to see the raw feed. I want an AI agent to read it for me, strip the engagement metrics that hijack my judgment, filter the rage, and return only what I actually came for,” he added.

In a world where AI agents are already proving to be expert hackers, agreeable coworkers, and custom-built board members — as well as potential security risks — Johnson’s push for an AI layer between himself and his feed doesn’t seem all that far off.

Johnson has made it his life’s focus to try to reverse his biological age to avoid death. He spends around $2 million a year to do so, focusing on extreme treatments such as plasma therapy alongside his strict diet and exercise routine.

His wish for an AI social media buffer also ties into his quest for a longer life, he says: “I want social media to become a longevity intervention, not a longevity threat.”