Fact Check: Did Tyler Robinson's father vow to donate $1.15M reward to Charlie Kirk's family?
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH: A rumor going viral in September 2025 claimed that the father of 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, the man suspected of fatally shooting conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah Valley University event on September 10, had vowed to donate a $1.15 million reward to Kirk’s family.
Social media posts and memes portrayed Matthew Robinson as pledging to hand over the money after allegedly helping persuade his son to surrender to law enforcement.
Claim: Tyler Robinson’s father vowed to donate $1.15 million reward to Charlie Kirk’s family
The story spread widely on social media, with one Cowboys Fan Hub Facebook post gathering tens of thousands of reactions and shares.
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According to the viral posts, Matthew Robinson supposedly told followers, “My son wronged the Kirk family, and it’s my responsibility to help him face that mistake. The money is enormous, but it’s not meant for me. I want it to go to the Kirk family instead.”
The rumor was based partly on real reporting about Matthew Robinson’s role in urging his son to surrender, as confirmed by the Associated Press, but it added the unverified claim about a reward donation.
Posts also cited a $1.15 million figure, said to represent combined pledges from public figures and organizations for information leading to the suspect’s capture.
Fact Check: False, no evidence to back the viral claim
No credible news outlet or law enforcement agency has reported that Matthew Robinson promised to donate a $1.15 million reward to Kirk’s family. Searches across major news platforms (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo) turned up no record of such a pledge.
The Associated Press confirmed that Matthew Robinson, along with a youth pastor, helped persuade Tyler Robinson to surrender, but it did not report any plan to donate reward money. CNN reported that the FBI initially offered $100,000, while Fox Business detailed separate pledges from billionaires, whose $1 million promise appears to have inspired the inflated $1.15 million figure.
Fabricated donation stories are common after high-profile tragedies, often spread to drive traffic to ad-heavy websites. The Cowboys Fan Hub Facebook page, which circulated the rumor, has a history of posting fake sports-related claims and lists its page managers in Vietnam—a common marker of low-quality content operations.
No proof behind $1.15 million donation claim
The $1.15 million figure cited in memes combined different real numbers. Bill Ackman pledged $1 million toward the reward and later announced he would donate $1 million as an endowment to the Kirk family, but there is no evidence that Matthew Robinson promised any money at all.
Vietnam-managed Facebook pages—including Cowboys Fan Hub, The Fly Eagles Fly, and Eagles Fans Worldwide—have previously spread similar hoaxes. This reflects a broader trend of “AI slop” and clickbait donation stories that exploit emotional news events to drive engagement and advertising revenue.
This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.
