Conspiracy theories about the death of Charlie Kirk have inundated X, TikTok, and Instagram in recent days. And while crackpot ideas have always followed major world events, there’s no denying that they’re much more common and widespread in the age of social media.
Kirk, a 31-year-old right-wing influencer, was shot and killed Sept. 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. The graphic killing was captured on video from several angles since many people in the audience were filming his discussion, quickly uploading footage in the immediate aftermath.
The suspect in the killing, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, turned himself in to authorities late Thursday night local time, according to CNN. But the internet has been flooded with conspiracy theories about Kirk’s death, both before and after Robinson’s arrest.
FBI Director Kash Patel appeared on Fox & Friends on Monday morning, where he made various claims about the shooting that haven’t been formally presented to a court yet, much less confirmed. But if the broader picture that’s emerging is true—that one man acted alone by firing a rifle from a rooftop—many of the conspiracy theories that have popped up are absolutely ridiculous.
Below, we’ve got some of the most common categories of conspiracy theories circulating on social media right now.
‘AI Wrong Man’ theories
After the shooting, the FBI released images of the suspect showing him in sunglasses. The screenshots were pixelated and low quality, which led people on X to run them through Grok in an effort to get a better look. The problem is that running images through AI that attempts to upscale them doesn’t give you a better or more accurate image.
Laura Loomer, a far-right influencer with close ties to the White House, shared three images after screenshots of the suspect were first released by the FBI. One of the three images was the original screenshot. Two others were fake AI-enhanced images, giving her followers the impression that they were legitimate pictures of the man.
Does anyone know who this guy is?
He has been labeled a person of interest in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. @FBI is looking for him. https://t.co/7AUwzYwAnO pic.twitter.com/HyWTk1HHxf
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) September 11, 2025
We looked at this problem earlier this month when people on social media were running Donald Trump’s photos through AI. The upscaler gave Trump a gigantic lump on his forehead, leading people to insist he had a serious medical condition. But that’s just what AI does to low-quality images. It will take shadows or creases in a person’s face and distort an image while attempting to make it look clearer.
We saw something similar happen during the Academy Awards in 2022 when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock. The screenshots that people were taking from TV and then blowing up appeared pixelated. To fix that, people ran them through upscalers, and it created what looked like a weird prosthetic on Rock’s face. From there, a conspiracy theory emerged that there was a pad protecting Rock’s face, leading people to insist the whole thing had been planned in advance.
This is how conspiracy theories take off now, and they’re incredibly predictable. In fact, when Gizmodo saw folks on X running images of the suspect in Kirk’s shooting through Grok, we knew people would inevitably compare those fake images to the real mugshot. And sure enough, that’s exactly what’s happened.
A TikTok account called Politic Nick posted a video Saturday comparing an AI-manipulated image of the suspect to the mugshot that was released.
“Okay, these are two different people here,” the creator said. “The mouth is different, the chin is different. The face is shaped different. The nose is sharp on the left. His nose is sharp. His lips are different I mean, come on.”
That video has racked up 1.4 million views and it’s an incredibly popular sentiment on other platforms like X, where high-profile accounts like Jackson Hinkle and Anastasia Maria Loupis have focused on the mouths in both images. “They think you are stupid,” Loupis tweeted.
They think you are stupid. pic.twitter.com/gWShG0vMqp
— Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis (@DrLoupis__) September 14, 2025
But the reason they look different is that the AI “enhanced” image did not present anyone with a more accurate impression of what the suspect looked like. These tools are not magic and can’t provide you with a better idea of his appearance. All the computer did was extrapolate from the information that was there. And it seems like all the people who’ve grown up on TV shows where investigators can “zoom and enhance” think that’s how it works in real life.
‘Just Look Harder’ theories
Another big bucket of conspiracy theories might best be described as “Just Look Harder” theories. The idea is that if you stare at someone in the background of a video from Kirk’s talk, you’ll discover a conspiracy hiding in plain sight.
This was a common tactic on X as millions of people were watching the extremely graphic videos of Kirk dying across all the major platforms. In the hours after Kirk was shot, a popular theory emerged that someone standing to Kirk’s right was giving “signals” to some unseen shooter.
There were clearly no signals, as anyone could see. But the power of suggestion, combined with watching the same horrific events played over and over, convinced a lot of people that perfectly normal behavior (one guy just had a phone in his hand) was somehow suspicious.
One of the most outlandish claims still circulating on social media is focused on a man who was standing near Kirk during his talk on campus. Sean Morley, a former WWE wrestler who went by the name Val Venis, has helped share the theory that the unnamed man used something called a “palm gun” that was concealed in his fist as he moved his shirt sleeve to kill Kirk.
The claim is absurd, and it appears that online dipshits have only gravitated to the idea because the man in the video scratches his arm at the same time that Kirk was shot. That’s seriously all it was, as you can see in the censored clip we’ve got below. There’s no evidence that this man was doing anything but touching his own arm.
GIF: X with a redaction by Gizmodo to protect the identity of someone who was clearly just touching their own shirtOne video shared by Morley has over 17 million views on X at the time of this writing. Others from Morley sharing edits of the same incident have several million more. And there’s so clearly nothing there beyond a person touching their own arm and moving their shirt a little bit.
‘Everything is Trans’ theories
Another bucket of conspiracy theories around the death of Charlie Kirk includes the idea that the killing must’ve been perpetrated by someone who is trans. The false idea that trans people are disproportionately represented as killers seems to have roots in a 2023 school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, that killed seven people, including the shooter. The perpetrator in that case was indeed trans, and now X is flooded with claims that a shooter must be trans whenever a new mass shooting makes the news. As Politifact notes, trans people are much more likely to be the victims of violence rather than perpetrators.
After Kirk was killed, at least three different trans people were falsely blamed for the shooting on X, by Gizmodo’s count. Posts went viral with wild claims about various people who had absolutely nothing to do with Kirk’s death.
After it became clear that the suspect in this case was a cisgender man, the internet mobs tried to find other trans connections wherever they could. The Wall Street Journal initially reported reported Thursday that the bullet casings found at the scene were in some way “expressing transgender and anti-fascist ideology,” citing a bulletin from the ATF. And while the newspaper edited the article later in the day to say that such a claim should be treated “with caution,” the damage was done. It turned out there was nothing on the bullet casings that mentioned the trans community.
It became so ridiculous that The Onion even wrote an article joking about how the suspect once had an Uber driver who was trans. But right-wing political operatives online are still obsessed with the idea that trans people are uniquely dangerous. FBI Director Kash Patel was asked whether Robinson’s roommate was trans and in a relationship with Robinson. Patel, who has a history of spreading conspiracy theories about QAnon and the January 6th insurrection, said that was true without providing any evidence.
Lots of unexplained questions remain
It’s easy to understand why conspiracy theories proliferate. Whenever a case unfolds, there are perfectly reasonable questions about facts that may not be known.
Countless questions remain about a motive for Kirk’s shooting and the potential political affiliation of the suspect. And it seems guaranteed that misinformation and disinformation will continue to run rampant on social media as we learn more. Unfortunately, guys like Kash Patel are not helping the situation as they rush to post on X before all the facts are truly known.
Patel wrote on the day Kirk was killed that, “The subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody.” But that was premature. The person they had in custody was just an attendee there to hear Kirk speak. And while it’s completely normal for shitposters to spread misinformation far and wide before the facts are known, we now live in a world where that shitposter happens to be the director of the FBI.
An earlier version of this article referred to WWE wrestler Sean Morley by his stage name, Val Venis. Gizmodo regrets the error.
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