The satirical news magazine The Onion won the Infowars bid for Alex Jones in a bankruptcy auction, with support from the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax, the families announced Thursday. .
“The liquidation of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long waited and fought for,” Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emily was killed in a 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers.
The selling price was not immediately revealed.
Jones confirmed The Onion’s acquisition of Infowars in a social media video on Thursday, and said he planned to file legal challenges to stop it. An email seeking comment was sent to Infowars.
It was not immediately clear what The Onion planned to do with its conspiracy theory platform, including its website, social media accounts, studio in Austin, Texas, branding and video archive. Chicago-based Onion did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment Thursday.
Sealed bids for the private auction opened on Wednesday. Both Jones’ supporters and detractors have expressed interest in purchasing Infowars. Other bidders were not revealed.
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The Onion, a satirical site that succeeds in convincing people to believe the ridiculous, describes itself as “the world’s leading news publication, providing highly regarded and globally revered coverage of breaking national, international and local news events” and says it has a $4.3 trillion daily readership.
Jones was saying on his show that if his critics bought Infowars, he would move his daily broadcast operations and product sales to a new studio, websites and social media accounts he had already set up. He also said that if his supporters win the bid, he can remain on the Infowars platforms.
Relatives of several of the 20 children and six teachers killed in the shooting have charged Jones and his company with defamation and emotional distress for repeatedly saying on his show that the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting was a hoax orchestrated by crisis actors to spur more gun control. Parents and children of many victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones’ plots and the threats of his followers.
Lawsuits have been filed in Connecticut and Texas. Lawyers for the families in the Connecticut lawsuit said they worked with The Onion to try to acquire Infowars.
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