- Satirical news site The Onion acquired right-wing conspiracy theory site and “are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website“
- Jones confirmed the sale on air but is now claiming the auction did not happen
- The Infowars founder lost the site after being successfully sued for over $1.4b by the families of the Sandy Hook massacre victims
In one of the wildest news stories of the year, maybe even the decade, satirical news site The Onion has purchased Alex Jones’ far-right conspiracy theory site Infowars at bankruptcy auction.
The court-ordered auction came after Jones declared bankruptcy, following the lawsuit brought against him by the families of the Sandy Hook massacre victims. Jones had falsely claimed the mass shooting (a conspiracy theory which was once shared by former UFC and WWE Champion Ronda Rousey), which claimed the lives of 26 people, 20 of them children, was a false flag operation orchestrated by gun control advocates. He repeatedly claimed the shooting didn’t happen and was staged, labelling the people involved as actors.
In October, 2022 a Texas judge awarded the 15 plaintiffs in the lawsuit over $1.4b in total damages. Despite mocking the ruling, Jones was left with no option but to declare bankruptcy via his three companies; Infowars, Prison Planet TV, and IWHealth. However, bankruptcy was not enough to protect Jones’ assets, which have been seized (including his pet cat), with some being auctioned off to raise settlement money for the affected families.
Yet the staggering news that broke yesterday of The Onion buying Infowars has now been downplayed by Jones, despite the fact he himself confirmed it on-air yesterday. In a live broadcast on X, Jones said, “I just got word 15 minutes ago that my lawyers and folks met with the US trustee over our bankruptcy this morning, and they said they are shutting us down even without a court order this morning. The Connecticut Democrats with the Onion newspaper bought us.”
Jones has since uploaded several videos to his X account claiming that the sale has been halted amid accusations that the auction was not conducted fairly and that all potential bidders were not granted proper access to the bidding process.
The Onion, meanwhile, have not provided any update on the auction situation, neither have they commented on Jones’ ‘hoax’ comments. CEO Ben Collins did, however, confirm the purchase on his Bluesky account yesterday morning (November 14), saying, “The Onion, with the help of the Sandy Hook families, has purchased InfoWars. We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website. We have retained the services of some Onion and Clickhole Hall of Famers to pull this off. I can’t wait to show you what we have cooked up.”
In a follow up post, Collins also said, “part of the reason we did bought [sic] InfoWars is because people on Bluesky told us it would be funny to buy InfoWars” adding that “those people were right” this “is the funniest thing that has ever happened”.
According to CNN, The Onion’s purchase (if it is indeed not a ‘hoax’ as Jones claims) includes the acquisition of Infowars’ intellectual property, such as its website, customer lists, inventory, certain social media accounts, and its production equipment.
