No Joke: The Onion Has Purchased Alex Jones's Infowars Out of Bankruptcy

The satirical website The Onion has purchased Infowars out of bankruptcy. The former Alex Jones property was part of a forced auction of Jones's assets following a $1.4 billion defamation judgment in a case involving Infowars and the loved ones of victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The Onion says the sale was sanctioned by the families of victims.  

“We thought this would be a hilarious joke,” said Ben Collins, the chief executive of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, in an interview with the New York Times. “This is going to be our answer to this no-guardrails world where there are no gatekeepers and everything’s kind of insane.”

Chris Mattei, a lawyer for the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, said “By divesting Jones of Infowars’ assets, the families and the team at The Onion have done a public service and will meaningfully hinder Jones’s ability to do more harm,” Mr. Mattei said.

“The dissolution of Alex Jones’s assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,” Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting, said Thursday in a statement.

The publication plans to reintroduce Infowars in January as a parody of itself, mocking “weird internet personalities” like Mr. Jones who traffic in misinformation and health supplements, Ben Collins, the chief executive of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, said in an interview.

Family members of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, which claimed the lives of 20 first graders and six educators, sued Mr. Jones in Connecticut Superior Court in 2018 after he spread the baseless claim that the rampage was a fabricated pretext for confiscating Americans’ firearms.

While many on the right believe The Onion's quality has declined in recent years, it can still zing the left with the best of them.

Cloaked Hillary Clinton Beckons Harris To Follow Her Into Woodshttps://t.co/EzphJLXIT6 pic.twitter.com/RTNOVRMa5O

— The Onion (@TheOnion) November 10, 2024

“The Onion is proud to acquire Infowars, and we look forward to continuing its storied tradition of scaring the site’s users with lies until they fork over their cold, hard cash,” said Collins. “Or Bitcoin. We will also accept Bitcoin."

Mr. Collins declined to provide financial details for The Onion, which is privately held, but he said that the company’s relaunched print edition had garnered “an arena” full of subscribers, helping finance the company’s bid for Infowars. Global Tetrahedron is backed by Jeff Lawson, a co-founder of the tech company Twilio.

Mr. Collins said that the families of the victims were supportive of The Onion’s bid because it would put an end to Mr. Jones’s control over the site, which has been a front of misinformation for years. He said they were also supportive of using humor as a tool for raising awareness about gun violence in America.