At a bankruptcy auction, Alex Jones’ Infowars was purchased by the satirical news outlet The Onion.
Supported by the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, to whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax, the satirical news outlet The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction on Thursday.
Alex Jones
In a statement released by his attorneys, Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 Connecticut tragedy, said, “The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for.”
In a social media video posted on Thursday, Jones acknowledged that The Onion had acquired Infowars and stated that he intended to contest the deal in court. Infowars received a request for response via email. Jones seemed upset as he laid his head in his desk while doing a live broadcast from the Infowars studio on Thursday morning. What The Onion intended to do with the conspiracy theory platform, which includes its website, social media accounts, Austin, Texas studio, trademarks, and video library, was not immediately apparent. Emails requesting comment on Thursday were not immediately answered by the Chicago-based Onion.
The Onion buys Alex Jones’s Infowars at auction
The final broadcast from Infowars’ studios is currently live. They’re inside the structure. Jones posted on the social media site X, “They’re ordering shutdown without court approval.” The private auction’s sealed bids were opened on Wednesday. There had been interest in purchasing Infowars from both Jones’s followers and opponents. The identities of the other bidders are unknown. As “the world’s leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events,” The Onion, a satirical website that successfully convinces readers of the ridiculous, claims to have 4.3 trillion daily users. Jones has stated on his show that he would relocate his daily broadcasts and product sales to a new studio, websites, and other platforms if his critics purchased Infowars.social media profiles that he has already created. He said that he may remain on the Infowars platforms if his followers prevailed in the bidding
The Onion buying InfoWars from Alex Jones, explained
Jones and his firm were sued by relatives of several of the 20 children and six educators who were murdered in the massacre for emotional distress and defamation after he frequently claimed on his show that the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting was a hoax orchestrated by crisis actors to push for stricter gun laws. Numerous victims’ parents and kids testified that Jones’ plots and his followers’ threats had scarred them. The claims were brought in Texas and Connecticut. The families’ attorneys in the Connecticut case claimed to have collaborated with The Onion in an attempt to purchase Infowars.