The Onion buys Alex Jones' Infowars at bankruptcy auction. Here are the details.
Satirical publication The Onion said it has bought Alex Jones' Infowars at a bankruptcy auction for an undisclosed price, with the backing of the Connecticut families of eight victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and one first responder.
Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments to the families for calling the massacre a hoax. In a statement from their attorneys, the families said the purchase is "putting an end to the misinformation machine that Jones used to defame the families and victims for years."
Sealed bids were opened Wednesday at the auction, which had been approved by a bankruptcy court earlier this year to allow the Sandy Hook families to receive payments from Jones. The conspiracy theorist and his company filed for bankruptcy in 2022 after losing defamation and emotional distress lawsuits by Sandy Hook families after he repeatedly called the Connecticut school shooting a hoax staged by "crisis actors."
The purchase was confirmed by conspiracy theorist Jones, who posted a video on X saying that The Onion bought his company. "The Connecticut Democrats with the Onion newspaper bought us," he said in the post, describing the bidding as "competitive."
The statement from the Sandy Hook families said the purchase includes Infowars' intellectual property, which includes its website, customer lists and inventory, as well as some social media accounts and production equipment used by Jones to air his shows.
"The Connecticut families agreed to forgo a portion of their recovery to increase the overall value of The Onion's bid, enabling its success," according to the statement.
However, according to the Associated Press, late Thursday the federal judge in Jones' bankruptcy case ordered a hearing for next week on how the auction was conducted.
Judge Christopher Lopez said that he had concerns about how the auction was conducted and ordered the hearing after complaints by lawyers for Jones and a company affiliated with Jones that put in a $3.5 million bid, the AP reported.
CBS News has reached out to The Onion for comment.
What will The Onion do with Infowars?
In a statement on the social media site BlueSky, The Onion CEO Ben Collins said his company has plans for 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," he wrote.
The Onion said its "exclusive launch advertiser" will be the gun violence prevention organization Everytown for Gun Safety.
In a satirical article posted to The Onion, the supposed CEO of Global Tetrahedron, the parent company of The Onion, said "the decision to acquire InfoWars was an easy one for the Global Tetrahedron executive board."
"Founded in 1999 on the heels of the Satanic 'panic' and growing steadily ever since, InfoWars has distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses," Global Tetrahedron CEO Bryce P. Tetraeder wrote. "No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds."
Were there other bidders for Infowars?
The other bidders have not been disclosed, but both supporters and detractors of Jones had expressed interest in buying Infowars.
What are the Sandy Hook families saying?
The families and their attorneys said they were hopeful that the sale of Infowars would curtail Jones' ability to spread conspiracy theories.
The sale of Jones' assets and "the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for," Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers.
"From day one, these families have fought against all odds to bring true accountability to Alex Jones and his corrupt business," Chris Mattei, attorney for the Connecticut plaintiffs and partner at Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, said in a statement. "Our clients knew that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones' ability to spread lies, pain and fear at scale. After surviving unimaginable loss with courage and integrity, they rejected Jones' hollow offers for allegedly more money if they would only let him stay on the air because doing so would have put other families in harm's way."