Satirical news site The Onion has acquired Alex Jones’ Infowars through a bankruptcy auction, with plans to turn it into a humor site. According to an official announcement published on X (formerly Twitter), The Onion has taken over the controversial website Infowars, previously owned by Alex Jones.
The acquisition was made through a bankruptcy auction, with The Onion announcing that it plans to reopen the site in January 2025. The buyout came with the support of families from Sandy Hook, Connecticut, who had sued Jones for spreading false news about the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed 26 people — 20 students and six teachers. Families sued Jones in 2018 after he spread the claim that the entire incident was staged with actors, a manufactured pretext for confiscating Americans’ firearms. Jones was ordered to pay more than $1 billion in 2022 and filed for bankruptcy later that year.
The Onion’s CEO Ben Collins said in a post on Bluesky that his team plans to turn Infowars into “a very funny, very silly site” with the help of veteran editors from The Onion and Clickhole. In fact, on his website, he states that the cost of acquiring Infowars was “less than a trillion dollars”. Alex Jones himself confirmed the development via a video he posted on X, saying:
I just found out 15 minutes ago that my lawyers and others met with the US bankruptcy trustee this morning, and they said that we shut down even without a court order.” Along with the buyout, The Onion announced a multi-year advertising deal with the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, though the exact amount of the buyout has not been disclosed. The development marks the end of an era for Infowars, which had become known for spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation.
The Onion, which recently changed ownership, is committed to transforming the site from a misinformation platform to a source of satire and humor.
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