Alex Jones is one of the biggest wingnuts out there. For a while, Jones and InfoWars were in a delusional white-nationalist bubble all their own, but nowadays, there are a million Alex Jones wannabes on podcasts, right-wing radio and ensconced in conservative media. One of the most damaging and ridiculous conspiracies pushed by Jones ended up being his undoing. Jones claimed that the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre was a false flag operation, a total hoax, and none of those children actually died. Jones encouraged his followers to harass and stalk Sandy Hook families, and the families ended up suing the f–k out of him. In 2022, Alex Jones got absolutely destroyed in court, and he was ordered to pay $965 million in damages to just EIGHT Sandy Hook families. Additional families are still pursuing lawsuits against Jones.

Because of those lawsuits and the already successful verdicts, Jones had to sell off InfoWars. Today, we learned that InfoWars has been bought by the satire site The Onion. The Onion, working with Sandy Hook families, purchased InfoWars in a bankruptcy fire sale, and now they’re going to remake it.

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 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 Onion acquired the conspiracy theory platform’s website; social media accounts; studio in Austin, Texas; trademarks; and video archive. The sale price was not immediately disclosed. The Onion said its “exclusive launch advertiser” will be the gun violence prevention organization Everytown for Gun Safety.

“Everytown will continue to raise awareness on InfoWars’ channels about gun violence prevention and present actual solutions to our nation’s gun violence crisis, including bipartisan, common-sense measures and public safety initiatives backed by Everytown,” The Onion said in a statement Thursday.

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.

“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.

[From The Associated Press]

The people who run The Onion are so pleased – not only are they going to platform Everytown and gun safety messages, they’re going to turn InfoWars into something fun, harmless and carefree. No more InfoWars dark fascism – they’ll turn it into something actually useful, a parody of that dark fascism, a satire of that right-wing hate and propaganda.

The Onion has acquired Infowars in a bankruptcy auction.

They plan to debut a new Infowars in January that will serve as parody, mocking weird Internet personalities like Alex Jones.

The Onion CEO says they acquired it because “this is the funniest thing that has ever happened” pic.twitter.com/yBehVoYGEI

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) November 14, 2024

Hello!

The Onion, with the help of the Sandy Hook families, has purchased InfoWars.

We're planning on making a very stupid website.

We've retained some Onion and Clickhole Hall of Famers to pull it off.

I can't wait to show you what we cooked up.https://t.co/nGvkF6kUC3

— follow @bencollins on bluesky (@oneunderscore__) November 14, 2024

Screencaps courtesy of YouTube.