The Onion’s latest headline is no satire: It’s purchased Alex Jones’ right-wing Infowars in a bankruptcy auction.
Further twisting the knife, the satirical news site announced its winning bid was supplemented by the loved ones of the mass shooting victims of Sandy Hook Elementary School.
It’s a final laugh for The Onion, which has regularly spoofed Jones over his spreading of conspiracies on Infowars, including his false claims about Sandy Hook that pushed the parents of slain children to successfully sue him for $1.5 billion in Connecticut.
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Jones reacted to the news in typical fashion—shocked, enraged, and conspiratorial.
“This is the tyranny of the New World Order, desperate to silence the American people,” he said in a video message after conceding his media company’s crown jewel had been bought by the “Connecticut Democrats with The Onion newspaper.”
“They changed all the bidding rules,” Jones said. “[They] made it secret two days ago. I had a bad feeling. I told you, bad feeling. I told you that. Just like they tried to shut us down back in late May, without a court order, we’re supposed to have a court order. There’s going to be injunctions filed.”
The New York Times reported that Infowars will now become a parody of its old self.
Ben Collins, The Onion’s CEO and a former Daily Beast journalist, told the Times his newly-acquired website will mock “weird internet personalities” like Jones who “traffic in misinformation and health supplements.”
“We thought this would be a hilarious joke,” Collins told the paper. “This is going to be our answer to this no-guardrails world where there are no gatekeepers and everything’s kind of insane.”
Collins posted to X on Thursday morning—in a clear dig at Jones’ health supplement grifting—and asked, “Does anybody need millions of dollars worth of supplements?”
The CEO added in a separate post that Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit who seeks to inform about gun violence, will have a hand in the new Infowars’ content.
“You better f---ing subscribe to The Onion,” Collins said. “This is the kind of thing we will do with your money. It allowed us to buy InfoWars. Now help us staff it.”
It was not immediately clear how much The Onion shelled out to purchase Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems. Funds from the sale are set to be diverted to satisfy Jones’ estate creditors, which is largely comprised of loved ones to Sandy Hook victims.
