He was born in the Chicago metropolitan area on October 14, 1993, to an architect father (who worked at the firm that designed Trump Tower in New York) and a mental health counselor mother. It became clear early on that the otherwise talented basketball player would be interested in politics: as a high school student, in addition to participating in Mark Kirk's (who was only a namesake) Senate campaign, as a high school graduate he launched a successful movement against the increase in the price of cookies.

He first appeared in the mainstream media when he wrote an essay for Breitbart News criticizing an economics textbook for what he considered to be too liberal a view. This led him to Fox News, where he was invited to do a talk – on the national debt. Later, he was invited to speak at Benedictine University, where Tea Party activist Bill Montgomery pitched him the idea of spreading the libertarian message on campuses instead of going there. It stuck with Kirk, and he did it: he dropped out of college and founded the nonprofit that would take him to the top at the age of 19. Although his parents weren’t keen on the idea of him dropping out of school, they were still supportive, as evidenced by the name Turning Point USA (TPUSA) his father gave to his organization.