Alex Jones is alleging the Onion’s purchase of his far-right site InfoWars at its bankruptcy auction on Wednesday was illegitimate, owing to the fact that it did not offer the highest bid.
InfoWars’ fate has been in limbo since the auction was first announced, which stemmed from a court order forcing Jones to pay the more than $1 billion defamation judgment he owes to families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012.
Jones repeatedly falsely claimed the shooting was a hoax.
He and his fans had hoped an ally would purchase the site and allow it to continue. But the Onion—which announced the deal on Thursday—has far different plans, with its CEO pledging to launch “a very stupid website” in its place.
Now Jones, who initially confirmed the news of the Onion’s purchase, is rejecting the deal as completely illegitimate.
“The U.S. trustee assigned by the Justice Department that was in charge of it went ahead and had what he said was an auction,” Jones said in a video posted to X. “But then it came out that he didn’t make the auction public, didn’t let people have bids to go above the supposed highest bid, which means it’s not a real auction. And then it turns out, he ignored the highest bid and gave it to a lower bid because they were the Democrats.”
“And so it was a private sale masquerading as an auction that did not happen,” Jones added. “That’s what the judge said today. He said it did not go through. He’s having a full evidentiary hearing next week.”
According to the Associated Press, the trustee who oversaw the auction, Christopher Murray, acknowledged that the satirical site did not have the highest bid, but argued it was a better deal overall because the deal was backed by several Sandy Hook families that agreed “to forgo a portion of the sale proceeds to pay Jones’ other creditors.”
The AP reported the only other bidder was First United American Companies, a business that is affiliated with one of Jones’ product-selling websites. A First American Companies lawyer told the court that Murray changed the auction process days before, when he decided to not hold a round allowing higher bids.
Now, InfoWars’ sale to the Onion is being held up by the bankruptcy judge overseeing the case, Christopher Lopez.
“We’re all going to an evidentiary hearing and I’m going to figure out exactly what happened,” Lopez said. “No one should feel comfortable with the results of this auction.”
Jones has dubbed the Onion’s purchase as a “HOAX,” claiming the outlet “didn’t even pay real money, they paid some weird fiat thing that wasn’t even agreed to by the judge’s order.”
As for what’s next? Jones thinks that at minimum, there will be a new, public auction.
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