CNN
—
Satirical news site The Onion won the auction to acquire conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars.
The Onion’s bid was backed by the families of eight victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and one first responder. It also will have an exclusive advertising deal with the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety. CNN was first to report the humor web site had entered the bidding.
The purchase acquires the company’s intellectual property, including its website, customer lists and inventory and certain social media accounts, as well as the production equipment used to put Jones on the air. The amount of the bid was not announced.
“The Onion is proud to acquire Infowars, and we look forward to continuing its storied tradition of scaring the site’s users with lies until they fork over their cold, hard cash,” said The Onion CEO Ben Collins. “Or Bitcoin. We will also accept Bitcoin.”
In order to make the bid work, the families “agreed to forgo a portion of their recovery to increase the overall value of The Onion’s bid, enabling its success,” the families said in a statement.
“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,” said Chris Mattei, attorney for the families and partner at Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder.
In a video posted to X Alex Jones decried the sale, claiming it as unconstitutional and encouraged fans to follow him on new social media handles.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m going to be here until they come in there and turn the lights off. I’m going to say, ‘Where’s your court order?’” he said.
Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting said, in part, “The world needs to see that having a platform does not mean you are above accountability — the dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for.”
Everything at Infowars, from the microphones to the email lists, was up for auction to help pay off the nearly $1.5 billion Jones owes the Sandy Hook families after being found guilty of defamation for calling the 2012 massacre a hoax.
Jones’ allies had also placed bids, with one source telling CNN that one of those bids was in the “seven figures” range. Jones had said on his show that “good guys” had been trying to bid on Infowars to keep him in place, but that even if they fail, he’ll keep broadcasting on new platforms and new social media accounts.
The Onion plans to have the web site transition to its new content by January 2025, according to a joint release with Everytown for Gun Safety.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
