A rumor that circulated online in September 2025 claimed the father of 22-year-old Tyler Robinson — who investigators suspect killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah Valley University event on Sept. 10 — vowed to donate a $1.15 million reward to Kirk's family, after he helped encourage his son to surrender to law enforcement.
One Snopes reader emailed with a link to an article on an advertisement-filled website displaying the headline, "BREAKING: Tyler Robinson's Father Vows to Donate $1.15 Million Reward to Charlie Kirk's Family." Numerous social media users promoted this rumor with the same link.
For example, on Sept. 14, the Cowboys Fan Hub Facebook page posted (archived) a meme allegedly showing photos of Robinson and his father — identified as Matthew Robinson in unrelated reporting from BBC News — with the purported quote, "This is what a father is supposed to do. 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 post received more than 41,000 reactions and 2,500 shares.
(Cowboys Fan Hub/Facebook)
Other users also shared this rumor on Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
The Associated Press, citing an anonymous law-enforcement official, reported Matthew Robinson (as well as a youth pastor) encouraged his son to turn himself in to the police. However, searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no news media outlets reporting the suspect's father vowed to donate a $1.15 million reward to Kirk's family, or making the statements appearing in the meme. Prominent outlets would have widely reported this rumor, if true.
Rather, whoever authored the claim fabricated the entire story as one of at least hundreds of inspirational tales, with the partial or whole goal being to earn advertising revenue on the website hosting the aforementioned article.
Digging into the rumor
The user or users who fabricated the rumor sourced the $1.15 million reward number from several different places. CNN reported the FBI initially offered a $100,000 reward. Fox Business also reported that several people offered additional reward money, "including Trump advisor Alex Bruesewitz, conservative activist Robby Starbuck and billionaire Bill Ackman." Bruesewitz and Starbuck each offered $25,000, while Ackman, the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, pledged (archived) $1 million. Ackman later posted (archived) on X he still planned to donate his promised $1 million, and that he would also donate (archived) $1 million as an endowment to the Kirk family.
An examination of the Cowboys Fan Hub Facebook page's stories found multiple posts promoting false rumors about the NFL, as well as a "page transparency" tab identifying at least some of its page managers as residing in Vietnam. Other Facebook pages hosting posts with the rumor, including The Fly Eagles Fly and Eagles Fans Worldwide, also displayed page manager information for Vietnam.
For further reading, we previously reported on the prevalence of other Vietnam-managed Facebook pages in our investigation of a wave of fabricated stories and fake images about famous people allegedly providing their money and rescue efforts that appeared on the social media platform following the July 2025 Texas flash floods — part of a larger trend of low-quality, artificial intelligence-generated content often referred to as "AI slop."