Satirical news website The Onion announced Monday what to many may sound like one of the media outlet’s signature jokes: It is in the final stages of a deal to take over Infowars, the far-right website founded by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. But The Onion was \u2013 for once \u2013 very serious.<\/p>\n
Under the new deal, The Onion’s parent company will pay an $81,000 monthly licensing fee to Gregory Milligan, the court-appointed bankruptcy manager for the website. It’s a Hail Mary bid by the ridiculous publication after its initial plan to acquire Infowars in 2024 during a bankruptcy auction was blocked by a judge.<\/p>\n
The Onion offered $1.75 million for InfoWars’ assets during a bankruptcy auction \u2013 in hopes of relaunching the site as a copy of itself \u2013 and was declared the winning bidder, but Jones was able to block the acquisition by arguing in court that the bidding process was tainted by illegal collusion. This came after Jones was found guilty of defaming the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and ordered to pay one of the largest judgments ever in restitution.<\/p>\n
Now, The Onion is asking a Texas county district judge to approve its unconventional licensing agreement, CEO Ben Collins announced on Monday. during an appearance<\/a> On The Athletic’s podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out.”<\/p>\n “With the help of the Sandy Hook families, The Onion has reached a long-awaited deal to take over Infowars,” Collins wrote in an article. monday afternoon post<\/a> On Bluesky, they said that comedian Tim Heidecker would be joining Infowars as its new creative director.<\/p>\n Collins told Torre that Onion planned to share the proceeds from the sale of its merchandise with the Sandy Hook families.<\/p>\n “I decided \u2014 with the help of everyone in my life and family \u2014 that I wasn’t going to quit,” Collins said on Torey’s podcast. “And I didn’t want to make this our gravest sin as a country, which is mass shootings of kids in school, where it’s OK to financialize it and get away with it. If we can’t draw a line there, there’s no line now.”<\/p>\n Jones filed for personal bankruptcy in Texas in 2022 after losing a defamation suit brought by the parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook shooting over mischaracterizing the shooting as a hoax involving actors. Jones later admitted that the shooting was “100 percent real”, and a bankruptcy judge approved the auction of Jones’ Infowars platform and its assets to help him pay nearly $1.5 billion in court-ordered damages to families.<\/p>\n