{"id":261191,"date":"2026-04-22T14:19:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T14:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/261191\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T14:19:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T14:19:16","slug":"the-onion-says-its-finally-acquired-alex-jones-austin-based-infowars-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/261191\/","title":{"rendered":"The Onion says it&#8217;s finally acquired Alex Jones&#8217; Austin-based Infowars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Jones&#8217; Infowars, a decades-long source of conspiracy theories, has been acquired by The Onion.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe 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 &#8220;crisis actors.&#8221; Courts in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/26050387-700806\/\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Texas<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2021\/11\/15\/1055864452\/alex-jones-found-liable-for-defamation-in-sandy-hook-hoax-case\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Connecticut<\/a> ordered the conspiracy theorist to liquidate his assets to pay back roughly $1.5 billion in liability.<\/p>\n<p>The Onion CEO Ben Collins <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/pablofindsout\/status\/2046275234832019487?s=46&amp;t=mciSM8k-HkU_t3bah8uY8Q\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">told journalist Pablo Torre<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;We want them to be able to get paid for real at some point with actual human dollars as part of this process,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We have taken over the Infowars studio and the IP and the website and all of that stuff.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nCollins said the transition would be finalized &#8220;within a couple of days.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nKUT News reached out to The Onion and Jones&#8217; bankruptcy attorney for confirmation on the sale but hasn&#8217;t yet heard back.<\/p>\n<p>\nJones <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PrettyBadLefty\/status\/2032933335144518041\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">teased the acquisition<\/a> last month on a podcast and on Monday called The Onion &#8220;body snatchers&#8221; on his show. The embattled host, who was shirtless, said he was looking into legal action to block the acquisition, which he said was a plan propped up by &#8220;the left.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;They try to silence you, and then they try and misrepresent who you are,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This is going to backfire big time, folks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nJones&#8217; 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kut.org\/business\/2024-12-10\/bankruptcy-judge-rejects-the-onions-bid-for-infowars\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">in 2024<\/a>, and last year, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c5ypjjxd40qo\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">judge rejected<\/a> his attempt to throw out the defamation judgment.<\/p>\n<p>\nSince then, Free Speech Systems, the Infowars parent company, has been slowly selling off property to pay plaintiffs over the last few months.<\/p>\n<p>\nCollins told Torre he plans on continuing programming as Infowars with some rebranding and reshuffling. The site plans to replace the &#8220;o&#8221; in &#8220;Infowars&#8221; with The Onion&#8217;s logo, and Collins said the show will bring on comedian Tim Heidecker as a potential replacement host.<\/p>\n<p>The Onion could take over the site as soon as May 1, Jones said. A Travis County <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.traviscountytx.gov\/courts\/files\/uploads\/DistrictCivilFamilyDktBook_NonJury.pdf#page=73\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">court hearing<\/a> in the case is scheduled for later this month.\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2026 KUT News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Jones&#8217; Infowars, a decades-long source of conspiracy theories, has been acquired by The Onion. The satirical media&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-261191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}