The Onion buys Alex Jones Infowars at auction with help from Sandy Hook victims families
The satirical news publication The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax, the families announced Thursday.“The dissolution of Alex 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.The sale price was not immediately disclosed.Jones confirmed The Onion’s acquisition of Infowars in a social media video Thursday and said he planned to file legal challenges to stop it.An email message seeking comment was sent to Infowars.“Last broadcast now live from Infowars studios.
They are in the building.Are ordering shutdown without court approval,” Jones said on the social platform X.Jones was broadcasting live from the Infowars studio Thursday morning and appeared distraught, putting his head in his hand at his desk.It was not immediately clear what The Onion planned to do with the conspiracy theory platform, including its website, social media accounts, a studio in Austin, Texas, trademarks and video archive.
The Chicago-based Onion did not immediately return emails seeking comment Thursday.Sealed bids for the private auction were opened Wednesday.Both Jones supporters and detractors expressed interest in buying Infowars.
The other bidders have not been disclosed.The Onion, a satirical site that manages to persuade people to believe the absurd, bills itself as “the world’s leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events” and says it has 4.3 trillion daily readers.Jones has been saying on his show that if his detractors bought Infowars, he would move his daily broadcasts and product sales to a new stu...