Who Killed Charlie Kirk? A Third Possibility

By Lawrence Erickson

It wasn’t until the evening that I learned that Charlie Kirk had been shot. As the sun was going down, I began a routine phone call with a politically involved friend of mine, and I asked how he was doing. He sounded distressed and told me that he was shaken by the news of the day. Having not browsed social media since morning, I assumed he was referring to the killing of Iryna Zarutska on the subway. Although that killing was tragic, that sort of event has unfortunately become very common so I was confused that it seemed to have such an impact on him.

He then told me that Charlie Kirk had been shot and killed. I was floored and started asking him rapid-fire questions for details. After learning that the assassin had killed Kirk with a single shot from 200 yards away and had even escaped, my first thought was that it must have been a professional. My second thought was that it was the Israeli Mossad.

After all, I had heard chatter on social media recently about Kirk feuding with many of his Jewish donors, primarily over the fact that he had platformed Tucker Carlson and Carlson had declared that Epstein was working for Mossad. Facing the fact that his base was turning on Israel from under him, but also needing to retain donor support, Charlie Kirk seemed to hope that he could play both sides and tried to explain to his donors that he was helping them through managing the conversation. Unfortunately, Israel does not like their minions to play both sides, and it is easy to see why they may have killed him for this perceived betrayal.

Shortly afterwards, Max Blumenthal released a more detailed exposé outlining how Kirk had felt intimidated by his pro-Israel donors shortly before his death and had even rejected an offer from Netanyahu that would have boxed him into a more pro-Israel position. This, along with the highly professional appearance of the killing, the conspicuously planted evidence that seemed designed to frame a leftist, and other inconsistencies in the official narrative seemed to paint a very clear picture of Israeli culpability.

There was just one problem I could not figure out. Charlie Kirk had spent his entire career defending Israel and continued to do so (at least publicly) up until the very end. An article from Joseph Correro outlines this quite well. Given his transactional nature and dependence on Jewish donors, a complete flip to being anti-Israel seems that it would have been very unlikely. Andrew Anglin notes that Kirk was pretty much the only major media personality with appeal among the youth who would defend Israel at all:

Charlie Kirk was one of the single most fiendish men working in American cultural manipulation. His evil acts go far beyond being literally the only non-Jew under 50 promoting the super-hardline Zionist narratives like “there are no starving Gazans, it’s a staged hoax” and “Israel has never targeted civilians.” Like, literally no one says that sort of stuff anymore, and hasn’t in like a year, and he was out there just reading Netanyahu press releases as fact every single day.

An article from Ambrose Kane also makes the point that Israel rarely assassinates media figures:

Although it’s true that the Israeli government has little qualms about assassinating people they see as a threat, Mossad does not go around killing controversial public figures in the U.S. who criticize them in the way that some think. How many social media influencers do you know that have been direct targets for death by Israel? Many of these same influencers have been ardent critics of Israeli policies and even of the Jewish people themselves – yet they have not been taken out by a sniper! The most strident anti-Semites to have walked the earth and who have published books savagely criticizing Jews have not, to my knowledge, been murdered by Mossad operatives. Even the British historian, David Irving, was never assassinated by the Mossad, although he did suffer greatly in other ways because of what he wrote. A string of Holocaust deniers has been imprisoned over the years (mostly in Europe), including scholars and authors who have published books critical of the Holocaust narrative. Yet I have not known any of them to have been murdered by professional hitmen.

With Kirk dead, a power vacuum has opened up for who will lead the conservative youth in America. Most of his followers will probably go to either Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Andrew Tate or Nick Fuentes, all of whom are far more anti-Israel than Kirk was. Fuentes has already gained nearly 200k Twitter followers and many right-wing figures, such as Steve Bannon, seem to think he is now the de facto leader of right wing youth. Surely it would be better for Israel to have a fence-straddler who could be worked with like Kirk than to leave his millions of followers to be scooped up by other voices that are militantly hostile to them.

This is what I call the “replacement problem” in the Israel-killed Kirk theory. There is simply no replacement with Kirk’s level of clout among young conservatives who can step in to fill his role. Anglin later suggests that Nick Fuentes could bury his previous beliefs and take over Kirk’s role. However, Fuentes has continued to strongly attack Israel and has refuted the idea that his beliefs have changed in any respect. Assuming that Fuentes remains Fuentes, the replacement problem seems to pose a major issue for the theory.

This situation has led to a significant divide on social media. One group starts with the hard evidence, reasonably concludes that Israel killed Kirk, and sees the other side as absurd. The other group starts with the replacement problem, reasonably concludes that Israel did not kill Kirk, and also sees the other side as absurd. This has led to much hostility between the sides, which breaks my heart! Both sides include many people who have contributed to the betterment of our country.

This divide might not be as irreconcilable as it appears though. While monitoring this conversation, a simple third possibility struck me.

If we look at the evidence, it is notable that Bill Ackman seems to be very directly involved in almost all of it. Much attention has been paid to how Tucker Carlson declared Epstein was working for Mossad at Kirk’s event, but Carlson also strongly insulted Ackman on a personal level, saying “How do you come to a place where some of the least impressive, most useless people who have no actual skills become billionaires… How did Bill Ackman get $9 billion? A pretty impressive guy? I know him. No.”

Blumenthal’s article notes many other examples of how specifically Ackman was irate at Kirk’s behavior:

The mockery by Carlson was particularly galling for Ackman. One day after TPUSA’s conference, Ackman staged a 4,000 word Twitter/X meltdown defending his financial acumen, while insisting that he earned his vast fortune because, “I inherited good genes.”

…

The billionaire also took issue with Carlson’s contention that he had been part of convicted sex offender and late Zionist financier Jeffrey Epstein’s “constellation of people.” Yet Carlson’s remarks were grounded in fact.

…

But the meeting went off the rails when Ackman personally confronted Kirk about his views on Israel. The public face of UK Lawyers for Israel, Natasha Hausdorff, joined in the argument, and began “screaming” at Kirk, according to the attendee.

When his hosts presented him with a detailed list of every offense he supposedly committed against Israel, Kirk was “horrified,” said one person. Ackman also allegedly demanded Kirk rescind his invitation for Tucker Carlson to speak at his upcoming America Fest 2025 in December.

Many have pointed out how suspicious it is that shortly after Kirk’s killing, Ackman offered a million dollars to whoever could help find the killer. It was the father of the apparent killer who turned him in and it seems he will get the money. So, Ackman feuds with Kirk, Kirk gets killed, and then Ackman pays a million dollars to the father of the killer.

The apparent killer, Robinson, very much seems to be a patsy. Generally, there would be no need for a patsy to escape. However, if Ackman needed this scheme to have a plausibly deniable way to pay Robinson or his father, then his escape would be necessary.

Ackman’s fingerprints are all over this, and the side who argues in favor of the theory reasonably points to this as a connection to Israel. However, I would posit the simple question: Is there any reason Ackman could not have just acted alone?

After all, Ackman has a history of organizing violent behavior. Blumenthal notes:

In May 2024, the Washington Post revealed Ackman as a leading member of a Whatsapp group of 50 ultra-wealthy Zionists coordinating counterinsurgency-style actions against student anti-genocide protesters at Columbia University.

Ron Unz notes:

Even worse scenes took place at UCLA as an encampment of peaceful protesters was violently attacked and beaten by a mob of pro-Israel thugs having no university connection but armed with bars, clubs, and fireworks, resulting in some serious injuries. A professor of History described her outrage as the nearby police stood aside and did nothing while UCLA students were attacked by outsiders, with 200 of the victims then arrested. According to local journalists, the violent mob had been organized and paid by pro-Israel billionaire Bill Ackman.

To carry out this assassination, the only two things Ackman would need would be an assassin and a patsy. As a man worth nearly $10 billion dollars, finding an assassin would probably be trivial. Finding someone to take the blame might be a little more challenging, but the mob was always able to find patsies when they would conduct hits. I see no reason why an intelligence agency would be necessary in finding a patsy, especially if one has Ackman’s limitless resources and connections.

Ackman being infuriated at the personal attacks that Kirk had allowed from Carlson and Kirk’s apparent spurning of him at the meeting would explain why he might have acted emotionally, neglecting the bigger picture, while probably convincing himself that he was doing this for Israel. A single loose cannon like Ackman would be far more likely to act irrationally than Mossad, which always considers the bigger picture and long-term.

To use a bad pun, it is possible that Ackman may have orchestrated shooting Charlie Kirk in the neck, while also shooting his own cause in the foot.