UPDATE: Late Thursday afternoon, the bankruptcy court in Houston overseeing the case put the sale on hold until a hearing next week, which will determine whether the auction process was sufficiently transparent, The New York Times reports. The judge also wants to clarify what’s included in the deal, which could include Jones’ X account.
Original Story:
Satire website The Onion has purchased Infowars, the right-wing news site formerly helmed by disgraced conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Infowars was up for auction to cover part of the $1.5 billion Jones owes the families whose loved ones were killed during the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting. Jones used Infowars to push conspiracy theories that the shooting was a hoax, insisting that first responders were paid actors, among other claims, CNN reports.
Eight families and one first responder provided financial backing for The Onion’s bid.
“The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,” says Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the shooting, the Associated Press reports.
(Credit: Spencer Platt / Staff / Getty Images News)
The Onion plans to reintroduce Infowars in January as a parody website, potentially including articles meant to highlight the epidemic of gun violence in America. It will mock “weird internet personalities” like Jones, who spread misinformation and operate wacky vitamin businesses, according to The New York Times.
(New York Attorney General Letitia James ordered Jones to stop selling the vitamins as a proposed cure for Covid-19 in 2020, but the website is still online.)
In a fittingly sarcastic post titled “Here’s Why I Decided to Buy InfoWars,” The Onion joked that it plans “to collect the entire stock of the InfoWars warehouses into a large vat and boil the contents down into a single candy bar–sized omnivitamin that one executive (I will not name names) may eat in order to increase his power and perhaps become immortal.”
Recommended by Our Editors
Everytown for Gun Safety signed a multi-year advertising agreement with The Onion and will be the exclusive advertiser on Infowars during the relaunch period.
“We’re proud to be a part of what comes next, not only in terms of staunching the flow of hurtful misinformation, but also for the potential this new venture has to help Everytown reach new audiences ready to hold the gun industry accountable for contributing to our nation’s gun violence epidemic,” says John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.
Alex Jones calls the purchase a “deep state hijacking” in an X post. He says other bidders that “he was working with put in real bids,” but The Onion won unfairly despite its lower bid. “That’s all coming out in court. We gotta continue to restore our republic, but we won, Trump’s in, and we’re turning the tide.”
Jones was banned from Twitter in 2018 for abusive behavior. CEO Elon Musk reinstated his account in December 2023, prompting an exodus of 65,000 X users, Similarweb reports.
Get Our Best Stories!
Sign up for What’s New Now to get our top stories delivered to your inbox every morning.
This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.
About Emily Dreibelbis Forlini
Senior Reporter
