Alex Jones’ media company sold to The Onion at auction: NPR

Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones speaks outside the federal courthouse after a bankruptcy hearing in Houston in June.

David J. Philip/AP

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David J. Philip/AP

Alex Jones’ media empire has been auctioned off and the winner is The Onion. No joke.

The satirical news outlet bought Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, backed by a group of Connecticut families. Jones said on today’s show that security has told him he has to leave the premises this morning.

Proceeds from the sale will go toward paying off Jones’ nearly $1.5 billion debt to families of Sandy Hook victims who won two defamation lawsuits against him for spreading false conspiracy theories about the 2012 Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting. which Jones said never happened. . He accused the families of being actors, faked the murders of 20 children and 6 educators in an attempt to drum up support for gun control, and Jones supporters who believed the lies threatened and harassed the families for years.

“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 their attorneys.

“Our clients knew that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones’ ability to spread lies, pain and fear on a grand scale,” said Chris Mattei, attorney for the Connecticut plaintiffs.

The sale, which still needs to be approved by a bankruptcy court, includes Jones’ studio equipment, his lucrative online supplement store, domain names, customer lists and some of Jones’ social media accounts, but not his X account.

Jones, for his part, reacted angrily to his show,

“We go out like Vikings with swords in our arms,” ​​he said. He accuses the auction house of manipulating rules against him to benefit the families.

“At the last minute the rules of the auction changed,” he claimed yesterday. “What was supposed to be an open auction where you (…) could offer more money and top (previous) bids, but now they’ve decided it’s just going to be closed and there’s one bid and that’s the highest , get it.”

Jones hoped that a bidder who was ideologically aligned with him would have bought Infowars and hired him back to keep doing his show. He characterized it as a competition between the “good guys” (his allies) and “the bad guys” who wanted to put him out of his job. Jones vowed days ago that he won’t miss a beat behind the mic; he said he has received several offers to host his show and had a backup studio ready earlier this week.

Jones insisted the “attacks” on him and on his show increased his reach to new heights.

“Infowars is stronger than ever,” Jones declared. The “desperate, ongoing, futile attempts to silence us have completely failed and done the opposite,” he said, while also appealing for financial help.

“I don’t roll over to tyrants and I will never surrender,” he said, “but we need the means to beat them.” He implored his audience to go to his online store and purchase his new “Trump Patriot Apparel” and limited edition posters that would help support his show.

Jones also featured his line of vitamins and supplements, which make up a significant portion of his income. He now sells them on a separate website owned by his father – a move the families’ lawyers are challenging in court, accusing Jones of setting it up as a shell company to shield his income from families.

Jones is still appealing what he calls the “sham trials” and “show trials.” And he has also threatened to challenge the sale of his company for any “chicanery”.

If approved, the sale will cap a stormy but financially successful run for Jones as sole owner of Infowars. Starting his career with a local radio show in Texas more than 25 years ago, he built his brand as a leading purveyor of conservative conspiracy theories, even claiming that the US government was behind the 9/11 attacks. In recent years, Jones ran into trouble for problematic and hate speech on several platforms; he was removed from social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and Apple removed his show from its podcast platform and his app from its app store. But Jones has proven quite resilient in the face of efforts to deplatform himand he got a boost when Elon Musk reinstated Jones’ Twitter account (now X) late last year.

Regardless of who Jones works for, the families can continue to chase his future earnings. That’s because the bankruptcy judge ruled that Jones’ conduct was “willful and malicious,” so he’s not entitled to the clean slate that bankruptcy usually offers.

The families “have a hunting license to go after any asset or any income that Jones has, regardless of source,” said Bruce Markell, a former U.S. bankruptcy judge and now a professor at Northwestern School of Law.