What Is Charlie Kirk's Net Worth?
Charlie Kirk is an American businessman, entrepreneur, author, and producer who has a net worth of $12 million. Charlie Kirk is best known for founding Turning Point USA in 2012. The conservative nonprofit organization has affiliates including Turning Point News, Turning Point Action, the Turning Point Endowment, and Students for Trump. Turning Point USA has a Professor Watchlist that lists college professors who allegedly "discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom." The organization has been accused of attempting to influence student government elections and engaging in racist practices and illegal involvement in the 2016 presidential election. Turning Point USA is listed as an alt-lite organization by the Anti-Defamation League and was called a far-right organization by CBS News. Charlie founded the organization when he was 18 years old, and in 2019, he created a new 501(c)(4) organization called Turning Point Action, which is a political action committee intended to target Democrats.
Kirk hosts and produces the radio program "The Charlie Kirk Show," and he has published the books "Time for a Turning Point: Setting a Course Toward Free Markets and Limited Government for Future Generations" (2016), "Campus Battlefield: How Conservatives Can WIN the Battle on Campus and Why It Matters" (2018), and "The MAGA Doctrine: The Only Ideas That Will Win the Future" (2020). He also produced the 2021 TV special "Freedom Night in America feat. Charlie Kirk & Eric Metaxas at Dream City Church in Phoenix LIVE."
Early Life
Charlie Kirk was born Charles J. Kirk on October 14, 1993, in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Charlie's mother works as a mental health counselor, and his father served as the project architect manager for New York City's Trump Tower. Kirk grew up in Prospect Heights, Illinois, and he was raised by his mother. Charlie was a boy scout, earning the rank of Eagle Scout, and he attended Wheeling High School. During his junior year, he volunteered for the Senate campaign of Republican Mark Kirk (who is not related to him), and as a senior, he launched a campaign to undo a price increase for cookies in the school cafeteria.
After writing an essay about liberal bias in textbooks for the far-right website "Breitbart News," Charlie appeared on Fox Business. He later spoke at Benedictine University's "Youth Empowerment Day," where he met Bill Montgomery, a legislative candidate who was backed by the Tea Party. Montgomery encouraged Kirk to become involved with political activism full-time, and Charlie founded Turning Point USA, a "non-profit organization whose mission is to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote freedom." He met Republican donor Foster Friess at the 2012 Republican National Convention and convinced him to finance Turning Point USA. Kirk briefly attended the junior community college Harper College in Palatine, Illinois.
Career
Charlie serves as the CEO and chief fundraiser of Turning Point USA. In 2020, the organization was investigated by ProPublica, which concluded that it made "misleading financial claims." ProPublica also reported that "Kirk's salary has grown from $27,000 to nearly $300,000, and he no longer lives with his parents — last May he bought a $855,000 two-bedroom, two-bathroom oceanfront condo in Longboat Key, Florida, county property records show." In 2021, Turning Point USA announced that it would be establishing an online academy geared toward students attending schools that were "poisoning our youth with anti-American ideas." StrongMind, an Arizona-based education firm, partnered with the organization but eventually cut ties with Turning Point USA due to backlash from employees. The subcontractor Freedom Learning Group had been preparing course content for the academy, but it backed out after discovering that Turning Point USA would be running the school.
In 2019, Charlie launched the 501(c)(4) entity Turning Point Action, which acquired Students for Trump and "all associated media assets." Kirk subsequently announced a campaign to enlist one million students to vote for Donald Trump in his 2020 re-election campaign, but when it was unsuccessful, the Trump campaign and Turning Point USA blamed each other for the decline in youth support since the 2016 election.
In 2017, Charlie formed Turning Point Endowment Inc., whose "mission is to support and benefit Turning Point USA's charitable purposes and long-term vitality," and in 2021, he founded Turning Point Faith after his contract with Liberty University's Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty (which was co-founded by Kirk and Jerry Falwell, Jr.) was not renewed. Turning Point Faith's mission is to "engage, equip, and empower Christians to change the trajectory of our nation." Charlie serves on the Council for National Policy, a secretive group of conservative activists, and he is a spokesman for CNP Action. In 2020, Kirk was temporarily banned from Twitter for spreading false information about COVID-19 and saying that hydroxychloroquine was "100% effective in treating the virus."
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Personal Life
Charlie is an evangelical Christian, and he married businesswoman/podcaster Erika Frantzve on May 25, 2021. Frantzve was crowned Miss Arizona USA in 2012. Charlie and Erika welcomed a daughter in August 2022, and they kept the pregnancy a secret from the public. When Kirk returned to "The Charlie Kirk Show" after his daughter's birth, he stated, "In a world where everything is put on social media, where everything is constantly being posted and being talked about, we made a decision—my wife and I—to keep one thing rather private. And I'll tell you it was not easy….Outside of some close family and friends, my wife Erika and I, we decided not to tell the world that she was pregnant." He added, "And we did that for a variety of reasons, some being security, and also just being that it's not about social media. It's not about the millions of people that might talk about it to get likes and to get shares and all of that."
Awards and Honors
In 2018, Kirk was included on "Forbes" magazine's "30 Under 30" list in the "Law & Policy" category. In 2019, he received an honorary doctorate from Liberty University, a Baptist university in Virginia.
Real Estate
In June 2023 Charlie paid $4.75 million for a home in Scottsdale, Arizona. He listed this 6,800 square foot home for sale in March 2024 for $6.5 million. Here is a video tour:
