Did Elon Musk step in and pledge to pay all living and educational expenses for the children of Charlie Kirk? No, that's not true: That story originated on a website and Facebook page run by someone in Vietnam and it contained several hallmarks of having been generated with AI. No actual news reports made any mention of such a pledge and the story contained details that are verifiably not real.
The story appeared in a viral Facebook post (archived here) published by a Facebook page named "60 Second News" on September 11, 2025. It opened:
Act of kindness: Immediately after Charlie Kirk p@ssed away, billionaire Elon Musk stepped in, pledging to pay all living and educational expenses for Kirk's two children. This action not only helped the Kirk family ease the burden during their time of grief, but also caused a stir on social media, as many people expressed their admiration for Elon Musk's kindness in this tearful moment...
This is what the image in the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Sep 12 06:38:45 2025 UTC)
The page transparency tab (archived here) of the "60 Second News" page indicated it is being administered by someone in Vietnam.
(Image source: screenshot of "60 Second News" Facebook page transparency tab.)
According to AI detection tool Hive's browser extension, the image used to illustrate the story was 96.8% likely to have been generated by AI:
(Image source: Hive browser plugin results for photo illustrating "60 Second News" post on Facebook.)
The viral Facebook post linked to an article on a site named "Top News" (archived here) with a very long title that read:
Act of kindness: Immediately after Charlie Kirk p@ssed away, billionaire Elon Musk stepped in, pledging to pay all living and educational expenses for Kirk's two children. This action not only helped the Kirk family ease the burden during their time of grief, but also caused a stir on social media, as many people expressed their admiration for Elon Musk's kindness in this tearful moment...-NTY
It opened:
In the wake of the shocking and untimely passing of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, the nation has been gripped by grief. At just 31 years old, Kirk's life was cut short after a shooting incident at the University of Utah. While friends, family, and millions of supporters struggled to process the devastating news, one act of extraordinary kindness has captured the attention of the world.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has quietly pledged to cover all living and educational expenses for Kirk's two young children -- a move that has not only eased the immediate burden on the grieving family but has also sparked an outpouring of admiration across social media.
The story did not contain named sources and the author byline just read "nhuy", but it did make a claim about a hashtag that could be checked:
The announcement quickly went viral, dominating conversations on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and TikTok. The hashtag #ElonForCharlie began trending as users praised Musk's generosity during such a heartbreaking time.
As these searches (archived here, here and here) show, there was just one post with that hashtag on X, one on Instagram and there were none on TikTok at the time of writing.
(Image source: result of searches for posts with the hashtag #ElonForCharlie on X, Instagram and TikTok.)
Searches for actual news stories via Google News and Yahoo News that contained the phrases "elon musk", "charlie kirk" and "expenses" did not bring up any reporting that would confirm this actually happened (archived here and here).
The story is very similar to a slew of other AI generated clickbait articles about NFL stars donating money to Charlie Kirk's family that Lead Stories recently looked into.
