Judge Rejects Sale of Infowars to The Onion [View all]
Judge Rejects Sale of Infowars to The Onion
The Onion’s bid for the conspiracy website was supported by the families of victims of the Sandy Hook shooting and a nonprofit focused on ending gun violence.
By Benjamin Mullin and Elizabeth Williamson
Published Dec. 10, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/10/business/media/the-onion-infowars-alex-jones.html
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A judge late Tuesday night said he would not approve the sale of Infowars, the website founded by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, to the Chicago-based satirical publication The Onion, prolonging a messy tug of war between two high-profile suitors.
The ruling, by Judge Christopher M. Lopez in federal bankruptcy court in Houston, poses a roadblock for The Onion’s plan to take possession of the Infowars site and its associated assets after it won an auction last month. The Onion’s bid was backed by the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, who in 2022 won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones spent years claiming that the 2012 school shooting was a hoax and that victims’ family members were actors complicit in the plot. The Onion has said that it wants to turn Infowars into a satirical site mocking the kind of conspiracy theories that Mr. Jones spreads.
Judge Lopez’s ruling put the fate of Infowars in limbo. He instructed a court-appointed trustee, Christopher Murray, to come up with an alternative resolution, though it was not immediately clear what approach Mr. Murray would take. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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