Is the age of Ben Shapiro coming to an end?

Ben Shapiro was once the golden boy of online conservative media. 

In 2019, The Ben Shapiro Show was listed near the top of most podcast charts, and in 2020, his Facebook page regularly published many of the top-performing posts in the United States. As a result, he accumulated millions of followers across social media platforms. 

Today, his Facebook audience is shrinking. He has fewer followers now than he did at the start of the year, despite algorithmic changes at Meta that are boosting political content in users’ feeds. On other digital platforms, like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, his growth in 2025 has lagged far behind his peers in the right-wing media space. Since January 1st, Shapiro has grown his audience on four key social media platforms by just 166,000, a shockingly small amount compared to Candace Owens, who has added over 2.8 million followers or subscribers, Shawn Ryan (+2.1 million), Brett Cooper (+1.4 million), Tucker Carlson (+1.2 million), Megyn Kelly (+1.2 million), and Matt Walsh (+300,000). 

Shapiro’s online stagnation isn’t just in follower growth; his content no longer dominates engagement on sites like X or Facebook. According to data from CAP Action, Shapiro’s Facebook page is not one of the top 10 most-engaged political accounts in 2025, and his posts on X have received fewer total views than most other conservative influencers this year. 

In the podcast space, The Ben Shapiro Show has been supplanted by a host of right-wing political shows, according to publicly available data from Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. On Spotify, Shawn Ryan, Tucker Carlson, and Candace Owens are currently beating Shapiro in the charts, while on YouTube, he’s fallen behind nearly a dozen other conservative long-form shows. 

So, what’s behind Shapiro’s steady decline from dominance?

For one, I think it’s safe to say that he hit a ceiling - he likely already captured all the people who would be interested in his style of brash and nerdy right-wing content. This could be especially true on Facebook, where it has been particularly challenging for any political media personality to surpass a ceiling of around 10 million followers. Second, he’s been around for much longer than some of his rival conservative stars, and his audience may be looking to other, more dynamic personalities for this new political moment. 

More troubling for Shapiro, however, are his recent feuds with other high-profile figures in conservative media. His unequivocal support for America’s funding of Israel has rankled both the new isolationist wing of the MAGA right, as well as online neo-nazis like Nick Fuentes. In the past year, he has been criticized by Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, and Tucker Carlson, who recently called him “a shill.”

Shapiro’s struggles with his own brand and content come at an inflection point for his larger media brand, The Daily Wire. After telling Axios in December that the company was on track to earn $200 million in revenue last year, its CEO abruptly quit, staff were laid off, and Shapiro is eyeing a sale.  

Read more about Shapiro and the future of The Daily Wire:

• “A Crack in Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire” (The Bulwark, 3/20)

• “How Ben Shapiro Conquered the MAGA-verse” (THR, 1/16)

• “Shapiro solicits backers — or buyers — for a built-out Daily Wire” (Semafor, 5/18)

More things you should read: 

• “Is DOGE dead?” That was the title of a piece that led The Free Press’ site yesterday, as Elon Musk ends his time as a “special government employee.” The story notably includes a quote from MAGA mastermind Steve Bannon calling DOGE “totally performative.”

• Speaking of Musk and DOGE, the controversial Tesla chief criticized Trump’s landmark domestic policy agenda, telling CBS that Republicans’ “big beautiful bill” was a disappointment. 

• Lauren Egan at The Bulwark wrote about how Democratic elected officials are joining Substack as another way to engage their audiences. She also includes an incredible throwback to the 2016 “Meerkat Election.”

• Georgia Republicans continue to defend their record of having the dumbest political ads imaginable. Buddy Carter’s ad this week was bad, but still can’t top Kelly Loeffler’s “Attila the Hun” spot from 2020. 

• Rachel Carten published new data on which social media platforms marketers find the most valuable for their brands. (Spoiler alert: it’s Instagram by a mile.)

• GQ thinks that Adam Friedland could be “the Millenial Jon Stewart.”

• Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani is surging in New York’s Democratic mayoral primary, according to a pair of new polls. While Mamdani is capturing support from White New Yorkers and those with a college degree, his main opponent, disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is leading among people of color and non-college-educated voters by a wide margin.

That’s it for today - thanks for reading! Today’s newsletter was a short one, as I’m at a conference in Utah and still recovering from the holiday weekend. This issue was sent to 11,354 subscribers. If you enjoyed reading it, feel free to throw a few bucks in the tip jar or consider upgrading your subscription (if you haven’t yet). If you have questions, feedback, tips, or ideas for a future newsletter, just send me an email: [email protected]