Satire publication The Onion is buying Alex Jones' Infowars; judge to review sale

(This story has been updated to add new information.)

Satire publication The Onion is buying conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' Infowars media platform, which was put up for auction by court order to pay off the more than $1 billion he owes to the families of Sandy Hook school shooting victims.

Jones said in a post to social media Thursday that Infowars was being shut down and was bought by The Onion. The families won a defamation suit against Jones in 2022 after they said Jones used his platform to push conspiracy theories that the 2012 mass shooting that killed 20 children and six adults was a hoax.

The amount of the winning bid was not disclosed in court records. The sale is still subject to approval in court, and U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez said at a hearing Thursday that he had concerns about how the auction was conducted.

"I personally don't care who wins the auction," Lopez said. "I just care about the process."

The purchase has the support of the families, according to a statement shared with USA TODAY by the gun violence prevention advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.

The Onion plans 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," according to the statement. Everytown for Gun Safety will also advertise on the relaunched site, it said.

The Onion announced the news with its typical brand of humor.

“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,” The Onion’s CEO Ben Collins said in the statement. “Or Bitcoin. We will also accept Bitcoin.”

The Onion published a satirical release as well, written from the perspective of the CEO of The Onion's parent company, whose social media profile says he is a "chairman, media proprietor, entrepreneur, human trafficker, thought leader, and venture capitalist." The release took took special aim at Infowars' supplement business.

"As for the vitamins and supplements, we are halting their sale immediately. Utilitarian logic dictates that if we can extend even one CEO’s life by 10 minutes, diluting these miracle elixirs for public consumption is an unethical waste. Instead, we plan to collect the entire stock of the InfoWars warehouses into a large vat and boil the contents down into a single candy bar–sized omnivitamin that one executive (I will not name names) may eat in order to increase his power and perhaps become immortal."

The Onion plans to relaunch Infowars in January.

“We were told this outcome would be nearly impossible, but we are no strangers to impossible fights. 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,” Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting, said in a statement.

Chris Mattei, a lawyer representing the families of the Sandy Hook victims, said the families rejected "hollow offers" from Jones to receive more money in exchange for allowing him to stay on the air. He said the families agreed to forgo part of their recovery to make the Onion bid stronger.

“By divesting Jones of Infowars’ assets, the families and the team at The Onion have done a public service and will meaningfully hinder Jones’s ability to do more harm,” Mattei said in the statement.

Jones said on a livestream Thursday morning that he will continue to produce content on another site using his own name instead of the Infowars site, which was down as of midmorning Thursday. He continued streaming live Thursday after the acquisition announcement using the Infowars logo and brand.

Jones said his legal team would challenge the sale in court, calling the auction process "ridiculous" and claiming it was set up to favor his opponents.

The company designated as the backup bidder, First United American Companies LLC, filed a request for a hearing Thursday "to address the apparent defects in the sale process, including changing the procedures, lack of transparency, and inaccurate disclosures to interested bidders," according to court records.

The New York Times reported that during the hearing Thursday, it was revealed that The Onion's bid was not the highest of the two bids, but that it had been selected because it included a "credit bid" – the agreement by the victims' families to forgo part of what they're owed, at least for now.

Lopez, the judge, said that First United American Companies was not made aware of the amount of the winning bid. Walter J. Cicack, the lawyer for the backup bidding company, said he wasn't given the opportunity to increase his bid.

Lopez said at the hearing Thursday that he would schedule a future hearing, likely next week, to go over the sale.

Contributing: Fernando Cervantes Jr., USA TODAY; Reuters

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Onion acquires Alex Jones' Infowars at auction