The satirical news outlet the Onion has purchased Infowars, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ right-wing media platform at a court-ordered bankruptcy auction.
Onion CEO Ben Collins confirmed the purchase in a post on Bluesky on Thursday.
“The Onion, with the help of the Sandy Hook families, has purchased InfoWars. We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website,” Collins wrote.
About an hour and a half after the sale was announced, the website was shut down. The Onion plans to rebuild the site and feature well-known internet humor writers and content creators.
Per CNN, the purchase includes Jones’s company’s intellectual property, such as its website, customer lists, inventory, certain social media accounts, and production equipment. The purchase price has not been disclosed.
Jones addressed the sale in a video posted on social media platform X on Thursday morning.
“I just got word 15 minutes ago that my lawyers and folks met with the US trustee over our bankruptcy this morning, and they said they are shutting us down even without a court order this morning,” Jones said in the video. “The Connecticut Democrats with the Onion newspaper bought us.”
The sale follows a court order for Jones to sell his assets to help pay the $1.4 billion he owes to the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting. The families sued him for defamation after he falsely claimed the shooting was a hoax and that the victims were actors in a government plot to take away Americans' guns.