Infowars gets surprise new owner
Satirical outlet The Onion has teamed up with US gun control group Everytown to place the winning bid on InfoWars, which right-wing commentator Alex Jones was forced to liquidate to pay enormous legal debts. Several families of Sandy Hook school shooting victims, who won the judgment against Jones, reportedly also pitched in.
In 2022, a Connecticut judge ordered Jones to pay $1.5 billion to the families of those killed in the 2012 school massacre, which claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults. The plaintiffs argued that Jones caused them emotional damage by claiming the shooting was “staged” so the US government could enact draconian gun control laws. Lawyers for the families insisted on shutting down InfoWars and its parent company, Free Speech Systems LLC, to settle part of the debt.
“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,” the outlet’s CEO, Ben Collins, said on Thursday. “Or Bitcoin. We will also accept Bitcoin.”
Jones tried to file for bankruptcy protection, but the courts denied it, and he was forced to put InfoWars up for auction. The amount of the winning bid was not disclosed, but CNN reported that the bidding had reached “seven figures,” meaning $1 million or more.
Nine Sandy Hook families reportedly pledged to increase the value of the Onion’s bid by forgoing a portion of their recovery funds. Everytown for Gun Safety also pitched in, receiving an exclusive advertising deal with the new version of InfoWars in return.
The purchase includes Infowars’ intellectual property, website, inventory, customer lists, certain social media accounts, and production equipment.
Jones founded InfoWars in 1999, and by 2017, the website was receiving around 10 million monthly visits, eclipsing many mainstream news sites. He vowed to return to broadcasting under another brand as soon as possible.
The Onion started out as a satirical newspaper lampooning the style and substance of US media reporting. In 2016, it was bought by Univision. Declining in popularity during the first presidency of Donald Trump, the Onion ended up sold to the G/O Group, owners of several former Gawker properties (Gizmodo, Jezebel, Deadspin, Lifehacker, Kotaku, Jalopnik). The company has since sold off or liquidated most of these outlets.
Since April, the Onion has been owned by tech entrepreneur Jeff Lawson and managed by Collins, a former NBC News reporter covering “disinformation, extremism and the internet.” The outlet’s new management includes former social media executives from TikTok, Tumblr, and the dating app Bumble.
