Ben Shapiro

Shapiro was born in 1984 and entered the University of California, Los Angeles, at 16; at 17 Creators Syndicate hired him as the youngest nationally syndicated columnist in the U.S.⁠[1]

In May 2004 he published his first book, Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth, and has since repeatedly criticized what he calls the Left’s ideological stranglehold on academia.⁠[2]

In June 2004 he graduated from UCLA summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in political science.⁠[1]

In June 2007 he graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School.⁠[1]

In 2015 he and Jeremy Boreing launched the conservative media outlet The Daily Wire, whose parent Bentkey Ventures is owned by Boreing, Shapiro, Caleb Robinson and Farris Wilks.⁠[3]

On March 14, 2016, Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields resigned, saying the site had not stood by her after she alleged she was yanked by Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski; editor-at-large Shapiro resigned the same day, accusing Breitbart chairman Steve Bannon of betraying founder Andrew Breitbart’s mission. Lewandowski denied ever touching Fields.⁠[4]

In October 2016 the Anti-Defamation League published a report on 19,253 antisemitic tweets aimed at journalists between August 2015 and July 2016; more than 7,400 of them, about 38 percent, targeted Shapiro, making him the top target.⁠[5]

On September 14, 2017, he spoke at the University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) is a campus of the University of California system; the University of California was founded in 1868 through a merger of two institutions and moved to Berkeley, California, in 1873.Open the full entry, to about 1,000 people holding free tickets; police sealed off Sproul Plaza and other areas and kept protesters away outside.⁠[6]

The university estimated it spent about $600,000 on security; in his speech Shapiro called it “absurd” that Berkeley was spending well into six figures to protect his rights, and nine people were arrested.⁠[7]

From April 2, 2018, Westwood One turned The Ben Shapiro Show podcast into a daily one-hour radio program, launching on seven stations including WABC New York, KABC Los Angeles and WLS Chicago; the podcast then had 15 million downloads a month, and Shapiro called it the first podcast-to-talk radio transition.⁠[8]

In March 2019 his new book The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list.⁠[9]

In May 2019, promoting a new book, he was interviewed by Andrew Neil on the BBCBBCThe BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is the United Kingdom’s public broadcaster. Its predecessor was the British Broadcasting Company, formed in 1922, and since 1927 it has been established under a Royal Charter. It provides television, radio, and online services in the UK, is funded mainly by the television licence fee, and broadcasts worldwide in multiple languages through BBC World Service.Open the full entry’s Politics Live; when Neil pressed him on his support for Georgia’s new abortion law and on past comments, he accused Neil of bad motives and cut the interview short, saying “I’m popular, and no one has ever heard of you.” He later admitted he had been “destroyed” in the exchange.⁠[10]

In October 2020 he announced in a video posted by The Daily Wire that he would vote for Donald Trump, whom he had declined to support in 2016; he said he had thought Trump would not govern as a conservative—“I was just wrong on that”—and praised the administration’s tax reform, foreign policy and pro-life positions.⁠[11]

In The Authoritarian Moment he argues that Americans are divided primarily by culture rather than race or class, that a small radical left has come to dominate higher education, corporations, the media and Big Tech, and that people should refuse to go along. A Claremont Review of Books review found its account of the left’s cultural takeover insightful but said it underestimated the role of law and government.⁠[12]

Matt McManus, writing in Areo, criticized the book as full of internal contradictions and lacking self-reflection, saying it almost never engages significant counterarguments.⁠[13]

The Daily Wire’s 12-month revenue reached $100 million for the first time in 2021; the company had moved its headquarters from Los Angeles to Nashville in 2020 and was expanding into film, TV and publishing.⁠[3]

On November 7, 2022, he appeared on episode #336 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, discussing Kanye West, Hitler and the nature of evil, political attacks on left and right, Trump and Biden, Candace Owens, the war in Ukraine, abortion, climate change and faith.⁠[14]

On January 23, 2024, on episode #410 of the Lex Fridman Podcast, he debated liberal commentator and YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry streamer Steven Bonnell (Destiny) on liberalism versus conservatism, education, Trump versus Biden, foreign policy, Israel–Palestine, Russia–Ukraine, January 6 and wokeism.⁠[15]

In March 2024 commentator Candace Owens left The Daily Wire after criticizing Israel’s military response in Gaza, remarks Shapiro had called “absolutely disgraceful.” Shapiro denied she left over disagreements about Israel, pointing to “a lot of other factors”; Owens wrote on X that “you cannot serve both God and money.”⁠[16]

In March 2025 longtime CEO Boreing stepped down, saying he wanted to focus on scripted projects; the company had wound down its in-house book publishing arm and laid off staff. In May 2025 Shapiro met financial figures at the Milken Conference to discuss investment in, or a potential sale of, the company; the company declined to comment, and people familiar with the matter said there were no current plans to sell.⁠[17]

In December 2025 he gave the opening speech at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, criticizing Candace Owens for years of conspiracy theories, Megyn Kelly for refusing to condemn Owens, and Tucker Carlson’s decision to host Nick Fuentes as “an act of moral imbecility.” Carlson mocked his attempts to deplatform critics from the same stage, Kelly said their friendship was over, and Owens hit back on her podcast.⁠[18]

As of October 2026 he is founding editor-in-chief and editor emeritus of The Daily Wire and host of The Ben Shapiro Show; an Orthodox Jew, he is known for the trademark line “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”⁠[2]

X: Public account: https://x.com/benshapiro (opens in a new window)⁠[15]

YouTube: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BenShapiro (opens in a new window)⁠[15]

The Daily Wire: Official website: https://www.dailywire.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[14]