President Trump and Elon Musk said they were moved by the death of activist Charlie Kirk to set aside past differences, a gesture underscored at Kirk’s funeral by their public handshake. A lip reader told reporters that Trump appeared to tell Musk he had missed him since their falling-out.
The two were seen together in a box at State Farm Stadium in Arizona on Sunday, where an estimated 78,000 people gathered to honor the slain Turning Point USA co-founder.
Both Musk and the White House later posted photos of the reunion with the same caption: “For Charlie.”
Lip reader Nicola Hickling informed the Daily Mail that Trump began the conversation by warmly greeting the Tesla billionaire, asking, “How are you doing?” as they took their seats next to each other.
“So Elon, I’ve heard you wanted to chat,” Trump then apparently said before adding, “Let’s try and work out how to get back on track.”
When Musk nodded, Hickling said Trump appeared to add, “I’ve missed you.”
It was the first public appearance of the two since their split in late May, when Musk stepped down as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and began criticizing the administration’s sweeping “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Musk responded on social media with a series of posts criticizing Trump, at one point calling for his impeachment and urging the creation of a new political party to challenge the GOP.
Conservative podcaster and influencer Candace Owens, meanwhile, responded to an inquiry from the UK’s Daily Mail last week, asking if she was planning to speak at Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s memorial service on Sunday.
Owens, once considered a close ally of Kirk, was notably absent from the lengthy list of speakers who included his widow, Erika Kirk, along with former Fox News star Tucker Carlson and President Donald Trump.
The inquiry followed reports after Kirk’s assassination on Sept. 10 at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, claiming that Kirk had distanced himself from her “after her views became too extreme,” the New York Post reported last week, citing a TPUSA advisory board member.
Former Fox News and Newsmax host Eric Bolling said on Patrick Bet-David’s “PBD Podcast” this week that while Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens were once “tight” through their work at Turning Point USA more than a decade ago, their relationship eventually fractured. According to Bolling, the split came after Owens’ “theories got just a little bit too down the rabbit holes.”
“It was too extreme for [TPUSA’s] taste,” Bolling said, adding: “Charlie, to his credit, kept a cordial friendship with her for years, but it hasn’t been a communication pipeline between the two for many years.”
Before rising to prominence among right-leaning online audiences, Candace Owens served as Turning Point USA’s communications director from 2017 to 2019.
Although she left the organization without holding another formal role, she continued to appear at TPUSA events as a guest speaker through 2024 and remained featured on the group’s website, The Post noted.
For her part, Owens instead chose to respond to the Daily Mail’s inquiry in a video that the outlet said turned out to be “even more compelling than we may have originally hoped.”
“This is what we got from Daily Mail,” said Owens as she began. “You’re right, you got me.”
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“I was not invited to speak alongside President Trump, and JD Vance, on the stage with Tucker Carlson at a memorial event,” she said. “Erika is in full control … I would hope she’s in full control, but I don’t know because I’ve been hearing some stories about donors that are pushing things.”
She then added: “Charlie and I never, for a second, stopped being friends. Ever. Never happened… They can’t produce one shred of evidence to that effect.”
As for Bolling’s claims, a spokesperson for Owens said he “is flat-out lying.”
