In the halls of American conservative media, a firestorm is raging, consuming its own in a blaze of accusations, ideological warfare, and profound tragedy.
What began as a high-profile, bitter separation between a media giant and its brightest star has metastasized into a dark and sprawling conspiracy theory.
At the center of this vortex are the two pillars of the movement, The Daily Wire and Turning Point USA, with commentator Candace Owens drawing an explosive, direct line from her feud with Ben Shapiro to the shocking assassination of her former mentor, Charlie Kirk.
This is the story of a political family that is not just fractured, but utterly broken—fighting over the scraps of a unified ideology that may no longer exist.
Chapter 1: The Initial Crack – “God and Money”
The first crack in the dam appeared in March 2024. Candace Owens, arguably the most powerful female voice at The Daily Wire (DW), abruptly left the company.
This was not an amicable split; it was the public climax of months of simmering tension between Owens and DW co-founder Ben Shapiro. The flashpoint for this eruption was the Israel-Hamas war.
Shapiro, who is Jewish, has long been one of the most stalwart and uncompromising defenders of Israel in American media. His position was one of moral clarity and unwavering support.
Owens, however, charted a different course. She adopted a sharply critical, isolationist-leaning stance, aggressively questioning the U.S. financial and military support for its ally.
Her commentary quickly veered into territory that many, including her own colleagues, found deeply troubling. She liked social media posts referencing “blood libel”—an ancient, antisemitic canard—and spoke of “secret Jewish gangs” operating in Hollywood. For a media company founded by Shapiro, this was an untenable ideological breach.
The rift became personal and brutally public. In a leaked video, Shapiro was heard describing her commentary as “disgraceful” and mere “faux-sophistication.”
Owens, a formidable combatant in the digital arena, fired back on X (formerly Twitter), the chosen battlefield for these modern ideological wars. She accused Shapiro of being “emotionally unhinged” and launched the tweet that would define the conflict: “You cannot serve both God and money.”
The line was drawn. It was universally interpreted as a direct accusation that The Daily Wire’s editorial line was not principled, but purchased.
Chapter 2: The Billionaire and the Gag Order
This “billionaire pressure” accusation became a central theme. The Daily Wire was famously launched with millions in seed funding from fracking billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks. For Owens’s supporters, this was the smoking gun. They argued that the network’s staunchly pro-Israel stance was a top-down mandate from its financial backers, not a genuine editorial position.
The feud might have settled into the typical churn of media gossip, but then came the “secret.” After her departure, reports surfaced, most notably from journalist Glenn Greenwald, alleging that The Daily Wire had secured a “gag order” against Owens, legally preventing her from disparaging the company.
This revelation was explosive because it came even as DW’s CEO, Jeremy Boreing, was publicly offering to host a live, on-stage debate between Owens and Shapiro.
To Owens’s camp, this was the height of hypocrisy: the company that championed “facts over feelings” and built an empire on the concept of free speech was allegedly using legal and financial muscle to silence its most prominent critic.
The secret was out, and it perfectly painted Owens as a free-speech martyr, silenced by the very machine she had helped build.
Chapter 3: The “Fateful Night”
For months, this was the state of play—a cold war between two of the right’s biggest factions, a story of contracts and competing ideologies.
Then, on September 10, 2025, the unthinkable happened. Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) and the man who gave Owens her first major platform, was assassinated.
Kirk, a figure who had for a decade been the primary youth organizer of the MAGA movement, was fatally shot while preparing for a speaking event at Utah Valley University.
The “fateful night” sent a seismic shockwave through the political world. A 22-year-old suspect, Tyler Robinson, was apprehended, but the motive remained a mystery. The movement was plunged into genuine, profound mourning.
As tributes poured in from across the political spectrum, the public waited for a statement from Owens. She was the woman who had once served as TPUSA’s communications director, the woman who had called Kirk her “brother” and partner in the cause. Her response was not one of simple grief. It was an accusation.
Chapter 4: The Bombshell Connection
In a stunning series of podcasts and social media posts, Owens effectively launched her own investigation, claiming the entire official story was a lie. She declared that the suspect in custody was a “patsy.” She alleged that the FBI was engaged in a massive cover-up and that Kirk had been professionally assassinated.
Then, she delivered the bombshell that connected everything.
Owens alleged that Kirk’s murder was not a random act of violence but was directly linked to the same ideological battle that led to her ousting from The Daily Wire. She claimed that in the weeks before his death, Kirk had been “pressured” by the same powerful, pro-Israel figures.
She specifically named billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, a vocal supporter of Israel, claiming he had participated in a high-stakes “intervention” with Kirk in the Hamptons. In this secret meeting, Owens alleged, “threats were made.”
The implication was horrifying, conspiratorial, and crystal clear: In her narrative, Charlie Kirk had begun to question the pro-Israel orthodoxy—the same way she did—and for that, he was permanently “silenced.” She had lost her job for her dissent; he had lost his life.
Chapter 5: The Conservative Civil War
The reaction was immediate and furious, not from the “mainstream media” Owens typically battles, but from Charlie Kirk’s own, grieving inner circle. The cold war had turned hot.
Rob McCoy, Charlie Kirk’s pastor and a co-chair at TPUSA, issued a public and scathing rebuke of Owens. He called her theories baseless, disrespectful, and a desecration of his friend’s memory.
“He was a friend to Candace and never spoke poorly of her though he disagreed with her,” McCoy wrote, twisting the knife with a pained sense of betrayal. “He would never have treated Candace or her family in such a way had God forbid this tragedy been hers.”
Bill Ackman, the man she placed at the center of the alleged conspiracy, flatly denied her claims. “I have never threatened Charlie Kirk, Turning Point or anyone associated with him,” he posted, calling her accusations “defamation.”
The divide was made painfully visible when Owens did not attend Kirk’s memorial service. The event saw thousands, including a somber Tucker Carlson, gather to pay their respects.
While Kirk’s widow, Erika, gave a stunning speech on faith and grief, Owens was on X, casting doubt on the investigation and suggesting a “federal conspiracy.” She later claimed she was not invited, a move seen by many as a final, tragic excommunication from the movement she once helped lead.
This is where the conservative movement now stands: paralyzed and polarized by its own civil war. On one side, Candace Owens has positioned herself as the lone truth-teller, a woman who lost her job and her friend to a shadowy cabal of billionaires and “un-American” interests.
On the other, the grieving remnants of TPUSA and the powerful apparatus of The Daily Wire see her as a reckless conspiracy theorist, desecrating the memory of a fallen leader to settle a personal score with Ben Shapiro.
The “hidden secret” is no longer about a gag order. The “pressure from billionaires” is no longer just about editorial independence. And the “fateful night” is no longer just a tragedy—it has become a weapon.
The great fracture is complete, leaving a vacuum of leadership and a bitter divide over loyalty, ideology, and the very nature of truth itself.
