Alex Jones testifies at the Travis County Courthouse during his defamation trial in Austin in 2023. (Briana Sanchez | Pool photo from Austin American-Statesman via Reuters)
Alex Jones’ Infowars, a decades-long source of conspiracy theories, has been acquired by The Onion.
The satirical media outlet said Monday it finally acquired the controversial show hosted by Jones after roughly 18 months of back and forth in a Texas bankruptcy court. Jones was sued for defamation by victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, which killed 20 children and six adults, for referring to them as “crisis actors.” Courts in Texas and Connecticut ordered the conspiracy theorist to liquidate his assets to pay back roughly $1.5 billion in liability.
The Onion CEO Ben Collins told journalist Pablo Torre that the company would follow through on its plans to take over the show, while also sharing profits with victims of the Sandy Hook massacre.
“We want them to be able to get paid for real at some point with actual human dollars as part of this process,” he said. “We have taken over the Infowars studio and the IP and the website and all of that stuff.”
Collins said the transition would be finalized “within a couple of days.”
KUT News reached out to The Onion and Jones’ bankruptcy attorney for confirmation on the sale but hasn’t yet heard back.
Jones teased the acquisition last month on a podcast.
“We’ve beaten so many attacks,” Jones said. “But, finally, we’re shutting down in the middle of next month.”
Jones’ assets are being sold off in a Texas bankruptcy court, including the South Austin studio that hosts Infowars and any equipment used to produce content for the website. Jones tried to block the sale of Infowars to The Onion in 2024, and last year, a judge rejected his attempt to throw out the defamation judgment.
Since then, Free Speech Systems, the Infowars parent company, has been slowly selling off property to pay plaintiffs over the last few months.
Collins told Torre he plans on continuing programming as Infowars with some rebranding and reshuffling. The site plans to replace the “o” in “Infowars” with The Onion‘s logo, and Collins said the show will bring on comedian Tim Heidecker as a potential replacement host.
This is a developing story.