The Onion, the satirical news site, won the court-ordered auction of Alex Jones’ far-right outlet InfoWars.
The company was auctioned off on Wednesday under to help pay the more than $1 billion defamation judgment he owes to families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 after falsely claiming the shooting—which killed 20 children and six adults—was a hoax.
On Monday, Jones bemoaned the possibility of a “hostile buyer” winning the auction, as that would mean the end of InfoWars.
That came fruition with the purchase by the Onion, which frequently riffed on Jones.
“Alex Jones Concedes Sandy Hook Happened On Mars,” “What Alex Jones Spent Money On While Claiming To Be Bankrupt,” “Alex Jones Pleads With Sandy Hook Parents To Imagine Pain An Expensive Lawsuit Would Cause Him,” are just a few examples of the brutal articles the Onion has put out about him.
Both Jones and the Onion have independently confirmed the news of the auction’s outcome.
“The Onion’s goal with the acquisition is 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,” reads a press release announcing the purchase.
Everytown for Gun Safety, the anti-gun violence nonprofit, will be the Onion’s exclusive launch advertiser and signed a multi-year advertising agreement for the new platform.
“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 press release states. “Ultimately, the vast majority of gun owners support common-sense gun laws and inherently reject the radical vision of the country peddled by fear-mongers like Alex Jones and the gun industry.”
In a video posted to X Thursday morning, Jones confirmed that his lawyers “met with the U.S. trustee over our bankruptcy this morning and they said they are shutting us down even without a court order this morning.”
“The Connecticut Democrats with the Onion newspaper bought us,” Jones said, before accusing the auction of being a “total attack on free speech” and a product of “the tyranny of the New World Order.”
“Democrats Are On Their Way To The Building To Shut InfoWars Down Now,” Jones titled his livestream before adding four minutes later that “they are in the building.”
“They’re going to cut the power … They’re now in the control room,” he added. “Imperial troops are through the glass.”
In his livestream, Jones also cited Jones Paul Jones’ infamous Revolutionary War “I have not yet begun to fight” quote, announcing an alliance with Steve Bannon.
Ben Collins, the CEO of the Onion, announced on X that they’re “planning on making a very stupid website.”
The very stupid website in question plans to launch the new site in January 2025.
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