Satirical publication The Onion has hatched a new plan to acquire Infowars after a bankruptcy court thwarted the previous attempt.
Infowars, the website founded by right-wing conspiracist Alex Jones, went up for sale two years ago and an unlikely buyer, The Onion, hatched a plan to buy the website and turn it into a parody of itself.
The Onion now wants to license the website from Gregory Milligan, the site’s court-appointed administrator, and the satirical news outlet offered $81,000 a month to license the Infowars.com domain name for the first six months, with the opportunity to renew the deal if both parties agree.
According to the New York Times, Although the website administrator and The Onion have already agreed to the licensing agreement, it will not be effective unless Travis County District Court Judge Guerra Gamble approves it.
Alex Jones, who continues to operate the website and host his weekday show “The Alex Jones Show,” has not yet reacted to The Onion’s proposed deal. A final decision from the judge is expected within the next two weeks.
Jones is a well-known conspiracy theorist and has opposed The Onion’s proposed acquisition. Infowars is in limbo due to a series of lawsuits filed against Jones by victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012, which Jones claimed was a hoax.
Rough estimates from 2018 suggest that the Infowars website received more than 1 million visitors every day, a figure that has been declining since then.
Jones filed for bankruptcy last year. To pay debts to the Sandy Hook families and other creditors, Judge Christopher Lopez of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in mid-2024 ordered a trustee to sell equipment, intellectual property and other assets owned by Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars.
