At the Charlie Kirk memorial, did Elon Musk say the conservative organizer and podcaster "...did not live to be erased by the lost...we will not let that sacrifice go unnoticed"? No, that's not true: Musk was not one of the speakers at the September 21, 2025, memorial service held at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. He does not appear in full-length Fox News video of the event, nor in the transcript of that recording.
The made-up quotes appeared in a September 22, 2025 Facebook post (archived here) on the page of The Daily Scope under the title "ELON MUSK at State Farm Stadium, Glendale, Arizona. Before tens of thousands of cheering people, he stepped out into the bright lights, his voice loud but full of anger:". It opened:
"Charlie did not live to be erased by a lost man. Forgive? No. That man stole a future, a torch from millions. I will not call it a mistake of youth, I will call it a crime. And we - those of us who are left - will not let Charlie's sacrifice be buried in silence."The crowd erupted, clapping like thunder, chanting Charlie's name across the Arizona sky.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post on Facebook page The Daily Scope.)
Fox News covered the five-hour event live, posting a full-length video to YouTube (archived here) with a transcript.
Lead Stories found no mention of Musk in the transcript that appears with the YouTube video.
Lead Stories searched the transcript for key phrases, such as "erased by the lost" and "not let that sacrifice go unnoticed" from the purported Musk statements and found those words were not uttered by Musk, nor anyone else at the service.
Reviewing the video, Lead Stories found Musk did not take the stage to speak.
Lead Stories also used those key phrases to search Google News' index of thousands of news sites, to determine if Musk said either of those phrases before or after the formal service. Google News found no instances of those phrases being uttered by Musk, nor by anyone else.
Using the same key phrases, Lead Stories also searched the YahooNews index of its publishing partners and news services. That search (archived here) found no reports of Musk uttering the words attributed to him.
