Let's Buy Spirit: TikTok joke to buy Spirit Airlines raises $88 million

ALBAWABA - After the collapse of Spirit Airlines, an American ultra-low-cost airline, a TikToker joked about buying the airline and was able to make $88 million within two days.

On Monday, the campaign drew pledges from 124,755 people, totaling roughly $88,071,428 million, according to the official website [letsbuyspirit.com]. According to the creator, the minimum pledge is $45, which equals one ticket.

A man named Hunter Peterson announced the launch of letsbuyspirit.com, a few hours after the airline's collapse due to bankruptcy. On Sunday afternoon, the site had gained pledges from over 36,000 people, collecting roughly $22.8 million.

The website reads, "At 3:00 a.m. on May 2nd, 2026, Spirit Airlines turned off the lights. The planes stopped. The gates went dark. The airline that carried 44 million Americans last year simply ceased to exist."

^{(Screenshot from Let's Buy Spirit website)}

A note that pledges are currently unavailable is seen at the top of the website. It reads, "DUE TO THE HIGH INFLUX OF PLEDGES, OUR ABILITY TO VERIFY PLEDGES HAS BEEN LIMITED — EMAIL PROVIDERS HAVE FLAGGED OUR EMAILS AS SPAM, AND WE HAVE BEEN TEMPORARILY BLACKLISTED. FIX COMING SOON."

However, the amount rose, reaching $26 million after pledges by at least 40,000 people, before the site was closed, and it jumped again on Monday.

According to sources, Hunter Peterson, a voice actor whose video game credits on IMDb include Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, Honkai: Star Rail and Smite 2, announced the launch of the website to purchase the airline on Saturday.

^{Spirit Airlines. (Shutterstock)}

According to Yahoo, the search for "let'sbuyspirit.com" on Google hit over 100,000 searches in the previous 17 hours, up 1,000 percent.

However, after collecting 36,605 "founding patrons" and a total of more than $22,816,377 in pledges, the site appeared to be completely offline on Sunday afternoon, before it was reopened again, but without pledges. 

On the other hand, people rushed to a new Instagram account, @spiritair2.0, for updates while the site was shut down. The Instagram account has over 150,000 followers.

🇺🇸 Social media users just raised over $26M in pledges in only 36 hours to buy Spirit Airlines

A TikToker’s joke about crowdsourcing the whole airline went nuclear nearly 40k people pledged on LetsBuySpirit .com

Internet doing what it does best 😂pic.twitter.com/slsL1OjeIx https://t.co/1AZ3rgZiqu

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 4, 2026