Satirical site The Onion buys Alex Jones's Infowars out of bankruptcy

Lawyers for families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting worked with satirical website to acquire the platform

Alex Jones confirmed The Onion's acquisition of Infowars in a social media video on Thursday. Reuters

Satirical news publication The Onion has won the bidding for Alex Jones's Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, who Mr Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the attack a hoax.

“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 2012 mass shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers.

Mr 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.

The Onion acquired the conspiracy theory platform’s website, social media accounts, studio in Austin, Texas, trademarks and video archive. The sale price was not immediately disclosed. The Onion said its “exclusive launch advertiser” will be the gun violence prevention organisation Everytown for Gun Safety.

“Everytown will continue to raise awareness on Infowars’ channels about gun violence prevention and present actual solutions to our nation’s gun violence crisis, including bipartisan, commonsense measures and public safety initiatives backed by Everytown,” The Onion said in a statement on Thursday.

“Last broadcast now live from Infowars studios. They are in the building. Are ordering shutdown without court approval,” Mr Jones said on the social platform X. He was broadcasting live and appeared distraught, putting his head in his hand at his desk.

Sealed bids for the private auction were opened on Wednesday. Both supporters and detractors of Mr Jones had expressed interest in buying Infowars. The other bidders have not been disclosed.

The Onion, a satirical site that manages to persuade people to believe the absurd, bills itself as “the world’s leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events” and says it has 4.3 trillion daily readers.

Mr Jones has been saying on his show that if his detractors bought Infowars, he would move his daily broadcasts and product sales to a new studio, websites and social media accounts that he has already set up. He also said that if his supporters won the bidding, he could stay on the Infowars platforms.

Relatives of many of the 20 children and six educators killed in the shooting sued Mr Jones and his company for defamation and emotional distress for repeatedly saying on his show that the incident in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control. Parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatised by Mr Jones’s conspiracies and threats by his followers.

The lawsuits were filed in Connecticut and Texas. Lawyers for the families in the Connecticut lawsuit said they worked with The Onion to try to acquire Infowars.