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Charlie Kirk, the right-wing political influencer and activist who co-founded Turning Point USA to foster a culture of conservatism on school campuses around the nation, was shot dead today while speaking to students at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. He was 31 years old.
“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,” President Donald Trump wrote this afternoon on Truth Social. “No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!”
One of Kirk’s spokespeople confirmed his death to The New York Times.
Kirk was speaking at Utah Valley University at an event on Turning Point USA’s American Comeback Tour when he was shot in the neck by an unknown assailant while sitting at a table under a small pavilion with a sign reading “Prove Me Wrong.” He was rushed to the hospital, where he was held in critical condition before he died.
Kirk, born and raised in the affluent suburbs of Chicago, embraced political life from a young age, volunteering as a teenager for the successful 2010 Senate campaign of Mark Kirk (no relation). In 2012, as a senior in high school, he wrote a column for the right-wing media outlet Breitbart News alleging that students were being indoctrinated by textbooks with a liberal slant. The piece propelled him to an appearance on Fox Business Network and a speaking engagement on a nearby college campus, where he met Bill Montgomery, a retired businessman who encouraged him to pursue activism full-time instead of attending college. Kirk did briefly attend Harper College but soon dropped out, and in 2012 co-founded the conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA with Montgomery, who became his mentor. (Montgomery died at 80 in 2020 due to complications from Covid-19.)
From the age of 18, Kirk served as the executive director and public face of Turning Point. The nonprofit says it is “committed to identifying, educating, training, and organizing students to promote freedom,” and it promotes “the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government.” As he grew the operation into a massive media machine, Kirk made frequent appearances on Fox News as a voice of young conservatives, addressing subjects such as free speech at Ivy League universities, drawing tens of millions in donations from powerful Republican donors in the process. Today, according to its website, TPUSA has “a presence on over 3,000 high school and college campuses nationwide, over 650,000 lifetime student members, and 450 full- and part-time staff all across the country.”
Kirk made thousands of media appearances in his activist career and wrote for many right-leaning press outlets, as well as less partisan publications such as The Hill and Newsweek. He was the youngest speaker at the 2016 Republican National Convention and the opening speaker at the 2020 RNC. In 2018, he was selected for the Forbes “30 Under 30” list of rising young entrepreneurs.
As Kirk aged into adulthood, his focus — and that of Turning Point USA — shifted from merely mobilizing young conservatives to reaching conservative, religious voters. Kirk began promoting America’s “biblical values” and holding summits for pastors, urging them to engage in politics under the banner of TPUSA Faith.
Kirk served as a crucial surrogate for Trump through his public appearances and on his popular podcast, The Charlie Kirk Show, as well as through his YouTube channel, which has nearly 4 million subscribers and has accumulated more than a billion views altogether. Turning Point USA’s advocacy arm worked hand-in-hand with Trump’s 2024 campaign to help turn out voters.
During the 2024 Republican National Convention convention in Milwaukee, Kirk gave an official address to the convention in which he touted his group and its spinoffs as “the largest conservative grassroots organizations in the country.”
Kirk led a substantial portion of the ground game for Trump in 2024. He courted controversial religious networks, and in key swing states like Arizona, TPUSA effectively ran get-out-the-vote operations on behalf of Trump.
Although TPUSA’s objectives drifted somewhat from campus politics (Kirk even wrote a book in 2022 that called college education a “scam”), he relished events on college campuses, where he would spar with liberal students, challenging them in exchanges that frequently drove viral video content.
After Kirk was shot, Vice President J.D. Vance wrote in a post on X: “If you actually watch Charlie’s events — as opposed to the fake summaries — they are one of the few places with open and honest dialogue between left and right.He would answer any question and talk to everyone.”
News of Kirk’s death generated shock throughout the U.S. political ecosystem. President Trump ordered that flags at the White House be flown at half-staff until Sunday afternoon.
“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord,” Vance wrote on X.
Former President Joe Biden wrote on X: “There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones.”
“We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy,” wrote former President Barack Obama. “Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.”
Kirk is survived by his wife, Erika, and their two young children.
