The Onion buys Alex Jones’ Infowars at bankruptcy auction

Satirical publication The Onion said it has bought Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction for an undisclosed price, with the backing of the Connecticut families of eight victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and one first responder.

Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments to the families for calling the massacre a hoax. In a statement from their attorneys, the families said the purchase is “putting an end to the misinformation machine that Jones used to defame the families and victims for years.”

The purchase was confirmed by conspiracy theorist Jones, who posted a video on X saying that The Onion bought his company. “The Connecticut Democrats with the Onion newspaper bought us,” he said in the post, describing the bidding as “competitive.”

The statement from the Sandy Hook families said the purchase includes Infowars’ intellectual property, which includes its website, customer lists and inventory, as well as some social media accounts and production equipment used by Jones to air his shows. 

“The Connecticut families agreed to forgo a portion of their recovery to increase the overall value of The Onion‘s bid, enabling its success,” according to the statement.

What will The Onion do with Infowars?

In a statement on the social media site BlueSky, The Onion CEO Ben Collins said his company has plans for Infowars. 

“We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website. We have retained the services of some Onion and Clickhole Hall of Famers to pull this off. I can’t wait to show you what we have cooked up,” he wrote.

This is a developing story and will be updated.