A federal judge on Tuesday night rejected the sale of the conspiracy platform Infowars to The Onion satirical news outlet after Alex Jones claimed that a recent bankruptcy auction was fraught with illegal collusion.
The Onion was named the winning bidder on Nov. 14 over a company affiliated with Jones. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez’s decision means Jones can stay at Infowars in Austin, Texas. The Onion had planned to kick Jones out and relaunch Infowars in January as a parody.
At the end of a lengthy two-day hearing in a Texas courtroom, Lopez criticized the auction process as flawed and said the outcome “left a lot of money on the table” for families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
“You got to scratch and claw and get everything you can for them,” Lopez said.
The Onion offered $1.75 million in cash and other incentives for Infowars’ assets in the auction. First United American Companies, which runs a website in Jones’ name that sells nutritional supplements, bid $3.5 million.
Lopez cited problems — but no wrongdoing — with the auction process. He said he did not want another auction and left it up to the trustee who oversaw the auction to determine the next steps.
Trustee Christopher Murray had defended The Onion’s bid during the hearing.
“Only two people showed up to bid and … one was just better than the other,” Murray testified, referring to The Onion. Asked how much better it was, he said “by a lot.”
Although The Onion’s cash offer was lower than that of First United American, it also included a pledge by many of the Sandy Hook families to forgo $750,000 of the auction proceeds due to them and give it to other creditors, providing the other creditors more money than they would receive under First United American’s bid.
Jones did not attend the proceedings and instead broadcast from his studios in Austin.
“I can’t imagine the judge would certify this fraud,” Jones said on his show Tuesday. “I mean it’s head-spinning the stuff they did and what they claimed.”
The trustee and The Onion deny the allegations from Jones and the company and accuse them of sour grapes.
The sale of Infowars is part of Jones’ personal bankruptcy case, which he filed in late 2022 after he was ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion in defamation lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas filed by relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Jones repeatedly called the shooting that killed 20 children and six educators a hoax staged by actors and aimed at increasing gun control. Parents and children of many of the victims testified in court that they were traumatized by Jones’ conspiracies and threats from his followers.
Jones has since acknowledged that the Connecticut school shooting happened.