The American conservative movement is consuming itself in a firestorm of accusations and ideological warfare. What began as a high-profile, bitter separation between a media giant and its biggest star has metastasized into a dark conspiracy theory involving the loss of life, billionaire pressure, and alleged secret gag orders.

The two pillars of the movement, The Daily Wire (DW) and Turning Point USA (TPUSA), are now at the center of a vortex, with commentator Candace Owens drawing a direct, explosive line from her feud with Ben Shapiro to the shocking demise of her former mentor, Charlie Kirk.

The First Crack: Ideology and Money

The initial fracture occurred in March 2024 when Candace Owens, one of the most prominent female voices at The Daily Wire, abruptly left the company. The split was public and bitter, culminating months of simmering tension between Owens and DW co-founder Ben Shapiro.

The flashpoint was the Israel-Hamas war. Shapiro, an uncompromising defender of Israel in American media, clashed sharply with Owens, who adopted a critical, isolationist-leaning stance, questioning U.S. financial support and trafficking in rhetoric that many, including her own colleagues, found deeply troubling.

Owens fired back on X, accusing Shapiro of being “emotionally unhinged” and famously tweeting, “You cannot serve both God and money.”

This statement was universally interpreted as a direct attack on The Daily Wire, implying its editorial line was beholden to its financial backers.

This accusation of “billionaire pressure” became a central theme. The Daily Wire, launched with millions in seed funding from fracking billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks, faced renewed scrutiny.

Owens’s supporters seized upon this as proof that the network’s pro-Israel stance was a mandate from its financial backers.

The feud intensified when reports alleged The Daily Wire had secured a “gag order” against Owens, preventing her from disparaging the company.

To Owens’s camp, this was the ultimate hypocrisy: a company championing free speech was allegedly using legal and financial leverage to silence its most prominent critic.

This legal maneuvering painted Owens as a martyr silenced by the very machine she helped build, leaving a cold war between two of the right’s biggest media factions.

The Fatal Link: Kirk’s Evolution

Then, on September 10, 2025, the unthinkable happened: Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of TPUSA and the man who gave Owens her first major platform, was slain.

A suspect was apprehended, but the tragedy sent a seismic shockwave through the political world, plunging the movement into profound mourning.

Owens’s response was not one of simple grief. It was an accusation that directly linked Kirk’s tragic passing to the same ideological battle that led to her ousting from The Daily Wire.

She launched her own investigation, claiming the entire official story was a fabrication and that Kirk had been professionally taken out.

Owens delivered the bombshell that connected everything.

She alleged that in the weeks before his passing, Kirk had been “pressured” by powerful, pro-Israel figures, specifically naming billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, a vocal supporter of Israel.

Owens claimed Ackman had participated in a high-stakes “intervention” with Kirk in the Hamptons, where “threats were made.”

The implication was horrifying and clear: Charlie Kirk, in her narrative, had begun to question the pro-Israel orthodoxy—the same way she did—and for that, he was permanently “silenced.”

The Civil War and Excommunication

The reaction was immediate and furious, not just from the public, but from Kirk’s own inner circle. The conservative civil war had begun. Rob McCoy, Charlie Kirk’s pastor and a co-chair at TPUSA, issued a public and scathing rebuke of Owens.

McCoy called her theories baseless and disrespectful, pleading for her to stop. “He was a friend to Candace and never spoke poorly of her though he disagreed with her,” McCoy wrote. “He would never have treated Candace or her family in such a way had God forbid this tragedy been hers.”

Bill Ackman flatly denied her claims, calling her accusations “defamation.” The painful divide was made visible when Owens did not attend Kirk’s massive memorial service in Arizona.

She claimed she was deliberately uninvited—a move seen by many as a final, tragic excommunication from the movement she once helped lead.

While Kirk’s widow, Erika, gave a powerful speech on faith and grief, Owens was on X, casting doubt on the investigation and suggesting a “federal conspiracy.”

The Weaponization of Tragedy

This is where the conservative movement now stands: paralyzed and polarized. 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 is 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.