Last month, it was reported that satirical news website The Onion had won a bidding war to buy Alex Jones’ evil right-wing media company, including his Infowars website. They’d even worked together with the families of the Sandy Hook victims to ensure that they had enough money. The results were promptly challenged by First United American Companies (FUAC), an LLC associated with Jones’ other business dealings. FUAC claimed that they had made a bid that was “twice as much cash” as The Onion’s bid.
Both parties appeared in court this week for a two-day hearing in which they presented their cases. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez, who was appointed to serve the Southern District of Texas in 2019, ruled that the process was “unfair” because FUAC wasn’t given the final chance to outbid The Onion. As a result, he would not approve the sale and instead, sent it back down to the trustee to decide what to do next.
A bankruptcy judge on Tuesday rejected a bid by The Onion’s parent company to buy Alex Jones’ far-right media empire, including the website Infowars, ruling that the auction process was unfair.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez said after a two-day hearing that The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, had not submitted the best bid and was wrongly named the winner of an auction last month by a court-appointed trustee.
“I don’t think it’s enough money,” Lopez said in a late-night ruling from the bench in a Houston court. “I’m going to not approve the sale.”
It was not immediately clear whether there would be a new auction in which The Onion could bid again for Jones’ assets. Lopez said he would leave the decision about what to do next in the hands of the trustee, Christopher Murray, who had overseen the auction.
The judge said Murray had acted in good faith in running the auction in which The Onion’s parent company initially appeared to prevail, but he said the trustee did not run a transparent process and should have given a rival bidder associated with Jones another chance to improve its bid.
“I think you’ve got to go out and try to get every dollar,” Lopez said. “I think that the process fell down.”
The ruling dashed, at least for now, Global Tetrahedron’s plans to take over Infowars and radically shift its content from anti-government conspiracy theories to satirical humor. Instead, Jones can continue operating his far-right media business as he has for decades.
Jones went live from a studio soon after the ruling and told viewers: “We can celebrate the judge doing the right thing.” He had previously referred to the sale process as “auction fraud” and a “fraudulent sale.”
Onion CEO Ben Collins said in a statement on X that the company was “deeply disappointed” but would “continue to seek a path towards purchasing InfoWars in the coming weeks.”
“It is part of our larger mission to make a better, funnier internet, regardless of the outcome of this case,” he said.
“We appreciate that the court repeatedly recognized The Onion acted in good faith, but are disappointed that everyone was sent back to the drawing board with no winner, and no clear path forward for any bidder,” Collins continued. Collins previously covered disinformation and conspiracy theories for NBC News, a beat that often meant covering Jones.
The Onion’s parent company had partnered in its bid with families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting who successfully sued Jones for defamation, winning court judgments now valued at $1.2 billion. Part of the company’s plan for Infowars was to make anti-violence organization Everytown for Gun Safety the exclusive advertiser.
Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Connecticut families, said they were also disappointed.
“These families, who have already persevered through countless delays and roadblocks, remain resilient and determined as ever to hold Alex Jones and his corrupt businesses accountable for the harm he has caused,” he said in a statement.
“This decision doesn’t change the fact that, soon, Alex Jones will begin to pay his debt to these families and he will continue doing so for as long as it takes,” Mattei said.
Last month’s announcement that Global Tetrahedron had been named the winner of the auction shocked the media world and fans of both Jones and The Onion, but that announcement was only a recommendation from the trustee and required approval from Lopez, who is overseeing Jones’ bankruptcy case.
Well, this sucks for so many reasons. It sucks because we can’t have nice things. It sucks because the company that challenged The Onion is affiliated with Jones and they clearly have unlimited dark money. But most of all, it sucks because Jones is gloating to have gotten the ruling that he wanted. This feels like The Empire Strikes Back and it’s so frustrating! I don’t know what kind of funds The Onion and its parent company have to compete with whatever Jones’ business partners have, but I truly hope that they can pull it off. Is it legal for them to crowdfund it? I would totally contribute some money to that cause.
A statement from The Onion about InfoWars.
— Tim Onion (@bencollins.bsky.social) December 11, 2024 at 12:14 AM
Photos are via YouTube/Law & Crime Channel