UPDATED 11/9/2025 9.20am AEST

US right-wing activist and commentator Charlie Kirk, an influential ally of President Donald Trump, has been fatally shot in the neck at an event at a Utah university.

“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us,” Trump wrote on social media on Wednesday (US time).

In a following post, Trump said he was ordering American flags across the US to be lowered to half-mast until Sunday night.

Officials investigating the fatal shooting have given conflicting accounts as to whether police have arrested the suspected shooter.

FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X that a subject was in custody.

Shortly after that, Beau Mason, head of the Utah Department of Public Safety, said the suspect was still at large.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox said a “person of interest” was in custody.

Videos posted to social media from Utah Valley University show Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans “The American Comeback” and “Prove Me Wrong”.

A single shot rings out and Kirk can be seen reaching up with his right hand as a large volume of blood gushes from the left side of his neck. Stunned spectators are heard gasping and screaming before people start to run away.

Kirk was speaking at a debate hosted by his nonprofit political organisation. Immediately before the shooting, he was taking questions from the audience about mass shootings and gun violence.

“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” one person asked. Kirk responded: “Too many.”

The questioner followed up: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”

“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk asked.

Then the shot rang out.

The event had met with divided opinions on campus. An online petition calling for university administrators to bar Kirk from appearing drew nearly 1000 signatures.

The university issued a statement last week citing US First Amendment rights and affirming its “commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue.”

Trump and a host of Republican and Democratic elected officials decried the shooting and offered prayers for Kirk on social media.

At the White House, staff members, many of them young and admirers of Kirk, were ashen-faced as news of the shooting spread.

Republican and Democratic politicians expressed support for Kirk following the shooting.

“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord,” Vice President JD Vance, who was close to Kirk, wrote on X.

“There is no place in our country for this kind of violence,” former president Joe Biden said in a post on X.

“The attack on Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile, and reprehensible,” Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom said on X. “In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in EVERY form.”

Turning Point was founded in Chicago in 2012 by Kirk, then 18, and William Montgomery.

It enthusiastically backed Trump after he clinched the GOP nomination in 2016. Kirk was a personal aide to Donald Trump jr, Trump’s eldest son, during the general election campaign.

Soon, Kirk was a regular presence on cable TV, where he leaned into the culture wars and heaped praise on Trump.

He had 5.3 million followers on X and hosted a popular podcast and radio program, The Charlie Kirk Show. He had also recently co-hosted Fox & Friends on Fox News.

The shooting comes amid a spike in political violence in the US across all parts of the ideological spectrum.

Attacks include the assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband at their house in June, the firebombing of a Colorado parade to demand Hamas release hostages, and a fire set at the house of Pennsylvania’s governor, who is Jewish, in April. The most notorious of these events is the shooting of Trump during a campaign rally last year.

– with AAP