The Onion will have to wait a few more weeks to see whether a court will approve the satirical outlet’s bid to buy the carcass of Infowars, the site founded by right-wing conspiracy monger Alex Jones.
Earlier this month, the Onion gleefully revealed its winning bid for Infowars, which was sued into bankruptcy (as was Jones) after the families of victims in the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting won a judgment of more than $1.4 billion against Jones in a defamation suit. Jones had repeatedly lied and posited baseless conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook massacre. The Onion said it plans to relaunch Infowars in January 2025 as a parody of itself that mocks “weird internet personalities” like Jones.
But those plans are now up in the air. On Monday, the judge overseeing the sale of Infowars assets ordered a new hearing to review the auction process — which he previously expressed concerns about — and to consider objections to the Onion’s bid. Judge Christopher Lopez of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas delayed a hearing in the matter until either Dec. 9 or Dec. 17, the AP reported. According to a docket entry Monday, “Parties are to notify the Court’s Case Manager once they have agreed on a date for an Evidentiary Hearing.”
Lopez could decide to approve the sale of Infowars to the Onion (which entered its winning bid under the name of its parent company, Global Tetrahedron); order a new auction; or give the thumbs-up to the only other bidder in the initial Infowars auction, First United American Companies, which operates the ShopAlexJones.com website. First United and Jones have complained that the trustee overseeing the auction did not comply with Lopez’s instructions in the bankruptcy proceeding, as bids were submitted under seal.
“I want a fair and transparent process and let’s just see where the process goes,” Lopez said Monday.
The trustee who oversaw the auction, Christopher Murray, acknowledged in a status meeting with the court on Nov. 14 that the Onion did not have a higher cash bid than First United. The Onion’s bid included $1.75 million, while First United bid $3.5 million. However, Murray said, the Onion’s deal was picked as the superior offer because the Connecticut families agreed to forgo much of money Jones’ owes them in order to pay other creditors. In a subsequent court filing, Murray said the Onion’s bid was valued at $7 million when factoring in the backing of the Sandy Hook families.
As approved by Murray, the Onion’s purchase agreement included Infowars’ intellectual property, including its website, customer lists and inventory; certain social media accounts; and production equipment located in approximately 7,000 square feet of office space at the Infowars facilities in Austin, Texas.
Jones called the original auction “rigged” on his show, which continues to be available on the Infowars site. Last week, Jones filed a countersuit against Murray, Global Tetrahedron and the Sandy Hook families seeking to nullify the Onion’s bid. In a court filing on Sunday, Murray called the allegations a “desperate attempt” to delay the sale of Infowars to the Onion and accused Jones, his lawyers and attorneys for First United of a “vicious smear campaign lobbing patently false accusations,” per the AP.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s X has inserted itself in the Infowars bankruptcy proceeding. Lawyers for X filed a statement Monday with the Texas bankruptcy court “solely to make clear to all parties in interest” that the company owns — and “does not consent to the sale, assignment or transfer of” — X accounts that are maintained by Jones or his company, Free Speech Systems. Those include @infowars, @BANNEDdotVIDEO, @WarRoomShow and @RealAlexJones.
According to the proposed asset purchase agreement filed by Murray with the court, the sale to the Onion includes “right, title and interest to [Free Speech System] social media accounts” including the X accounts @infowars, @WarRoomShow and @BANNEDdotVIDEO. That’s the part of the bankruptcy sale X is contesting. That said, the asset purchase agreement would bar Jones from using any social-media accounts associated with Infowars once a sale closes.
Jones, who is banned from most major internet platforms over hate-speech and harassment violations, was reinstated on X by Musk last year. “I vehemently disagree with what [Jones] said about Sandy Hook, but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or are we not?” Musk wrote in December 2023 explaining the decision.
In December 2012, 20 students and six adults died in the shooting at the school in Newtown, Conn. Families of Sandy Hook victims sued Jones for defamation — and ultimately won the $1.4 billion-plus judgment — after Jones called the mass murder a “hoax” and falsely accused the parents of the children killed at the elementary school of colluding with the U.S. government in a supposed plot to restrict gun rights. (During the defamation trial in Texas, Jones testified that he now believes the Sandy Hook shooting was “100% real.”)
The Onion, meanwhile, was acquired in April by Jeff Lawson, co-founder and former CEO of Twilio, a customer-service software company.
“The Onion’s goal with the acquisition is to end Infowars’ relentless barrage of disinformation for the sake of selling supplements and replace it with The Onion’s relentless barrage of humor for good,” Global Tetrahedron said after its winning bid in the bankruptcy auction was announced Nov. 14.
