Elon Musk just dropped a bombshell that could land a top streamer behind bars – and it’s all tied to Charlie Kirk’s brutal murder.
In a fiery X rant that’s exploding online, the world’s richest man didn’t hold back: Destiny’s twisted take on Kirk’s assassination – blaming Trump and saying conservatives “need to be afraid of getting killed” – crosses the line into “incitement to murder.” “He should go to prison,” Musk thundered, sparking a firestorm of cheers from the right and cries of censorship from the left. Is this the crackdown on online hate we’ve been waiting for, or a billionaire’s power play gone too far? One thing’s clear: The gloves are off in America’s post-Kirk rage.
Dive into the full clash that’s dividing the internet
Elon Musk, the tech titan who’s never shied from a Twitter brawl, took his keyboard crusades to a whole new level this week, demanding that leftist streamer Steven “Destiny” Bonnell II face felony charges – and hard time – for comments tying President Donald Trump’s reelection to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. “Incitement to murder and domestic terrorism is a felony crime,” Musk posted bluntly on X on September 16, racking up 12.4 million views in under 48 hours. “For that, he should go to prison. He can resume streaming when he has served his term.”
The outburst, which lit up conservative feeds like a Tesla Roadster on autopilot, came hot on the heels of Bonnell’s appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, where the 36-year-old political provocateur refused to outright condemn Kirk’s September 10 slaying at a Utah Valley University rally. Instead, Bonnell doubled down on a narrative that’s become a flashpoint in the polarized aftermath: that Trump’s 2024 victory – and the MAGA movement it supercharged – fueled the kind of radicalism that put a target on Kirk’s back. “If you wanted Charlie Kirk to be alive, Donald Trump shouldn’t have been president for the second term,” Bonnell told Morgan’s panel, his voice steady amid the studio tension. “Every time he’s in office, this happens. People joked about when Biden came in, it was so boring, nothing was going on.”
Bonnell didn’t stop there. Pressed on whether he’d urge calm in the wake of the shooting, he shot back: Conservatives and their allies “need to be afraid of getting killed when they go to events” – a line that critics, including Musk, seized on as a veiled call for more violence. “You need conservatives to be afraid,” Bonnell reiterated in the clip that’s now been viewed over 8 million times on X alone, shared by users from podcaster Tim Pool to Gateway Pundit editor Jim Hoft. The remarks, delivered with Bonnell’s signature deadpan logic, were meant as a grim warning about escalating rhetoric, he later clarified on his YouTube channel. But to Musk and a chorus of right-wing voices, it sounded like a blueprint for bloodshed – especially coming days after 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, a self-avowed anti-MAGA radical, pumped a .300 Winchester Magnum round into Kirk’s neck from a rooftop perch 300 yards away.
Robinson, a UVU dropout with a history of online manifestos railing against “fascist campus preachers,” was arrested hours after the shot rang out, his Remington 700 still warm in his duffel bag. Federal prosecutors, eyeing hate crime enhancements, have painted him as a product of the very echo chambers Bonnell streams into nightly: fringe forums where Kirk-bashing morphed into kill lists. Kirk, the 31-year-old Turning Point USA founder who’d just helped Trump clinch Pennsylvania with a door-to-door blitz of 500,000 volunteers, was mid-rant on “soft-on-crime” Democrats when he dropped. His “man of steel” vertebrae stopped the bullet from exiting, sparing a tent full of students and staffers – a detail that’s since taken on mythic status in MAGA lore.
Musk’s response wasn’t just a tweet; it was a declaration of war in the ongoing skirmish over online speech. The South African-born billionaire, who’s poured $250 million into Trump’s campaign war chest and turned X into a conservative megaphone, has been on a tear since the shooting. He’s reposted lists of “vile” Kirk critics – from teachers to nurses – with captions like “These people are evil.” He’s demanded rapper Bobby Vylan’s deportation for a post-murder diss track snippet, and he’s warned fellow CEOs to “deplatform or fire” anyone echoing Bonnell’s sentiments. “Fight or die,” Musk has posted five times in the last week, rejecting bipartisan calls for unity from figures like House Speaker Mike Johnson and even Trump himself, who urged “healing” in a Flint rally speech. Critics on the left, from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to Reddit’s r/politics, call it a dangerous escalation – a free speech absolutist turned selective censor, using his platform to whip up a mob.
Bonnell, for his part, isn’t backing down. The Omaha native, who rose from World of Warcraft debates to a 700,000-subscriber YouTube empire dissecting everything from trans rights to election fraud, fired back on stream the day after Musk’s post. “My entire income is gone now,” he claimed, waving a screenshot of a fresh Twitch ban notice – his second, after a 2022 perma for “hateful conduct” over trans comments. “So much for the party of free speech,” Bonnell quipped, pinning the boot on Musk and “conservative goons” who’d flooded Amazon with ban demands. But here’s the rub: Bonnell hasn’t been on Twitch since 2022. His main gigs are Kick streams and YouTube lives, where he pulls in six figures debating conservatives like Charlie himself – Kirk once called him a “debate merchant” after a 2023 showdown that drew 1.2 million views. The “ban” screenshot? A troll edit, insiders whisper, but it went viral anyway, fueling Destiny’s martyr narrative.
The clash has deeper roots in the streamers’ worlds colliding with Kirk’s. Bonnell, a self-described “liberal taboo debater,” built his brand clashing with right-wingers – from owning Ben Shapiro in a 2019 abortion face-off to live-tweeting Kirk’s campus takedowns. He’s no stranger to bans: YouTube demonetized him over “groomer” rhetoric in 2021, and Kick briefly paused payouts after a heated Israel-Palestine stream. But post-Kirk, the heat’s infernal. Alex Jones, the Infowars firebrand, jumped in with a $100 billion defamation suit tease against Bonnell and fellow leftist Hasan Piker, who blamed Kirk’s “hate speech” for inviting the bullet. “They’re in deep trouble,” Musk replied to Jones’s thread, which has spawned a cottage industry of clip compilations tagging Bonnell’s “worst hits.”
On the flip side, Bonnell’s defenders see Musk’s prison push as peak hypocrisy. “Elon tacitly called for political assassinations during the 2024 cycle,” one Reddit user snarked in r/Destiny, a 264,000-member subreddit that’s been ablaze since the tweet. “Nothing happened because he’s above the law.” Others point to Musk’s own history: His 2022 “civil war” tweetstorm over Pelosi’s husband attack, or his “pedo guy” jab at a rescue diver. Legal eagles, from ACLU’s Jay Stanley to Harvard’s Cass Sunstein, warn that charging Bonnell under incitement statutes – a high bar post-Brandon v. Ohio (1969) – would chill speech across the spectrum. “Words aren’t bullets,” Stanley told Fox Digital. “Unless they’re a true threat, this is protected – even if it’s ugly.”
Yet in MAGA circles, Musk’s the hero du jour. At a Phoenix vigil for Kirk last Friday, where 3,000 mourners chanted “Lock him up!” outside TPUSA HQ, speakers hailed the X overlord as the “avenger we need.” Kirk’s widow, Erika, 29, teared up in an interview with Tucker Carlson: “Charlie debated guys like Destiny for years. He won hearts, not hate. Now Elon’s fighting for what Charlie stood for – truth over terror.” Trump’s camp is all in: Spokesman Steven Cheung told reporters the “Charlie’s Shield Act” – fast-tracked campus protection legislation – now includes “online incitement” probes, with Bonnell’s name floated in briefings.
The fallout’s rippling far beyond streams. Bonnell’s Kick deal, inked for $15 million over three years, is under review, per insiders – a blow that could slash his $2 million annual haul. Advertisers are ghosting: Razer paused sponsorships, citing “brand misalignment.” On X, #BanDestiny trended with 450,000 posts, while #FreeDestiny countered with 180,000, blending Bernie bros and blue-check libs. Piers Morgan, ever the instigator, invited both for a rematch – “Prison or Pardon?” – but Bonnell declined, citing “doxxing risks” after his address leaked on 4chan.
Zoom out, and this is America 2025: A nation still raw from Kirk’s casket at State Farm Stadium, where 100,000 paid respects under drone-jammed skies. Trump’s second term, sworn in January amid January 6 echoes, promised unity but delivered division on steroids. Kirk’s death – the first high-profile political hit since RFK Jr.’s 2024 scare – has supercharged the sympathy surge: Young GOP registrations are up 15%, per Gallup, with TPUSA’s “Kirk Legacy Fund” at $7 million. But it’s also birthed a cancel culture counteroffensive, with Musk as its Elon-sized spearhead.
Bonnell, born Steven Kenneth Bonnell II in 1988, wasn’t always the villain in this script. A philosophy major turned pro StarCraft II player, he pivoted to politics in 2012, live-debating Tea Partiers during Obama’s reelection. His schtick? Relentless fact-checks laced with profanity – “the Jordan Peterson of the left,” fans say, minus the lobster analogies. He’s debated Kirk thrice: Once at CPAC 2022, where a clip of Bonnell calling TPUSA a “grift machine” went viral; another in a 2023 podcast dust-up over affirmative action. “Charlie was sharp, but slippery,” Bonnell recounted in a post-Musk stream. “He’d pivot to God when logic failed.”
Musk, 54, knows the game too. His X feed, once meme-heavy, now brims with policy pummels: “The left programmed killers via campuses and cable,” he posted September 18, linking to a Fox segment on Robinson’s UVU dropout status. The Tesla boss, who bought Twitter for $44 billion vowing “free speech,” has banned 1,200 accounts since Kirk’s death – mostly left-leaning – drawing FCC scrutiny. “Selective enforcement,” charges Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who’s floated an “Musk Oversight Act.”
As the week closes, whispers of subpoenas swirl. Utah AG Sean Reyes confirmed to Fox that Bonnell’s clips are under review for “material support” angles, though experts peg conviction odds at 10%. Bonnell’s lawyered up with ACLU firepower, planning a federal suit against X for “targeted harassment.” Musk? He’s unbothered, posting a meme of himself as Deadpool: “Maximum effort against max idiocy.”
In Kirk’s Arizona hometown, where murals of the fallen founder dot every corner, locals grapple with the grudge match. “Charlie would’ve laughed at Destiny, then crushed him in debate,” says TPUSA volunteer Mia Chen, 22, who dodged the bullet that day. “Elon’s just saying what we’re all thinking: Enough is enough.”
For Bonnell, it’s existential. “If this is the hill, fine,” he told followers in a raw, 90-minute apology-not-apology. “But jail me, and watch the backlash.” Musk, sipping coffee in his Austin lair, might just call that bluff. In the coliseum of clicks and cuffs, the lions are circling – and America’s watching.