Days after the Sept. 10, 2025, fatal shooting of conservative commentator and Turning Point USA founder and CEO Charlie Kirk, a rumor began to circulate online that Elon Musk, who owns a controlling stake of X, had fired 2,000 employees at the social media company over a joke about Kirk .

For example, a post on Instagram claimed a staffer had made a joke about Kirk, resulting in the mass firing (archived):

The post’s caption linked to a supposed article on a blog littered with advertisements that had all the hallmarks of a junk content farm.

The article read, in part:

CHAOS ATX HEADQUARTERS: ELON MUSK FIRES 2,000 EMPLOYEES AFTER VIRAL JOKE MOCKING CHARLIE KIRK’S DEATH In a move that has sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley and the entire tech world, Elon Musk has reportedly fired 2,000 employees from X (formerly Twitter) overnight after a viral internal post mocked the tragic assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Sources inside the company describe a tense, almost surreal atmosphere that unfolded in the hours after the post went viral. The joke – reportedly made by a mid-level content moderator – was shared in a private Slack channel but quickly leaked onto the platform itself, where screenshots began circulating just hours after Kirk’s funeral. The post, described as “cruel” and “deeply disrespectful,” mocked Kirk’s death during a public event at Utah Valley University.

As of this writing, the post had more than 2.2 million views, 125,000 likes and 5,000 comments. Snopes readers searched the website seeking to confirm that the rumor was true. 

However, while Musk publicly expressed sympathy and support for Kirk and his family — sometimes appearing combative against those he perceived to be celebrating or making light of Kirk’s death — Snopes could find no evidence that mass layoffs had happened at the social media platform.

Days after Kirk’s shooting, for example, Musk said in a video interview with conservative English figure Tommy Robinson, that “the left was celebrating it openly” (archived):

However, we could find no evidence that his stance led him to fire 2,000 people at X over a joke by one staffer who allegedly made fun of Kirk. 

First, we ran the text of the article through an AI detector, which confirmed at least part of it was likely AI-generated. Further, the story cited a supposed X post by Musk, which we could find no evidence he had posted. The alleged post read: 

Free speech does NOT mean freedom from consequences. Mocking a man’s death – ANY man’s death – is not comedy, it’s cruelty. X will always stand for truth, not hate.

In addition, searches on Google, Google News, DuckDuckGo and Bing revealed no such mass layoffs. 

Additionally, it seems unlikely that Musk would fire such a significant portion of X’s staff. He told the BBC that X’s staff had shrunk to 1,500 employees by April 2023 after he took over in October 2022 and fired 80% of its workforce. One report indicated the social media platform’s employee count had grown to between 2,500 and 3,000 by the end of 2024. We reached out to the company and will update this report should it respond. 

Snopes has verified a number of claims surrounding Kirk’s death, including claims related to his stance on the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to bear arms.