In order to decide whether to authorize the sale of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ media company to the satirical journal The Onion, a federal court announced on Monday that he might schedule an evidentiary hearing the next month.
Insolvency The sale, which follows an auction on November 13, is in limbo until such a hearing, when interested parties can present their case and he can determine which of Jones’ assets, if any, can be sold, according to Houston Judge Christopher Lopez. They did not immediately pick a date.
In addition, he noted that “whatever was status quo pre-auction remains status quo” and declined to rule on Jones’ request for a temporary restraining order to invalidate the Onion’s bid right once. This effectively permits Jones to continue broadcasting from his primary platform, Infowars, for the time being.
“Firing folks a week before Thanksgiving is not what we do, but it sounds like that’s not what occurred,” Lopez stated. “Folks are continuing to work.”
A limited liability corporation connected to Jones’ nutritional supplement company, First United American Companies, was another bidder and had contested the auction’s outcome after claiming to have paid twice as much as the Onion.
The ownership of Infowars’ intellectual property, including its website, is up for auction. The revenues of the sale will mostly be used to pay off defamation judgments that were handed down to the families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims in 2012.
After Jones frequently referred to the murder in Newtown, Connecticut, which claimed the lives of 20 children and six staff members, as a “hoax” on his Infowars program, the families filed lawsuits against him in 2022. Following the approximately $1.5 billion in court awards, he filed for bankruptcy in his native state of Texas.
Following the announcement of the winning bid by bankruptcy trustee Christopher Murray, Jones’ company, Free Speech Systems, was scheduled to be sold to the Onion, which has frequently made fun of him in its fake news coverage.
However, First United American Companies swiftly challenged the outcome, claiming in an urgent filing to stop the sale that it had made a cash offer of $3.5 million as opposed to the Onion’s $1.75 million.
The trustee had the option to reject a bid that was “contrary to the best interests” of the estate creditors, and the Lopez-approved auction procedure did not force Murray to automatically choose the bidder who offered the largest sum.
According to Lopez on Monday, Murray’s business judgment regarding the auction’s conduct will be the main topic of an evidentiary hearing. He stated that he might choose to hold more hearings, order another auction, or allow the sale.
“I want a fair and transparent process, and let’s see where that process goes,” Lopez stated, before adding, “Everyone will have their day in court.”
Murray stated at a previous court hearing after the auction that “the creditors ended up significantly better off” as a result of the Onion’s bid. Additionally, he stated in a document that most Sandy Hook families were prepared to relinquish their portion of the sale proceeds in favor of receiving a portion of future earnings from a redesigned Infowars, which would enable the other creditors to obtain additional funds.
According to The Onion, the entire bid value is $7 million.
However, since any future income are uncertain, First American United Companies’ attorney Walter Cicack claimed in its filing that the deal amounts to a “Monopoly” money bid.
Regarding the Onion’s support from Sandy Hook relatives, he stated, “This was not simply collaboration; this was outright collusive bid rigging.”
In a prior statement, Chris Mattei, a lawyer for some of the victims’ families, claimed that the Onion had performed “a public service” by leading the acquisition and that it “will meaningfully hinder Jones’ ability to do more harm.”
In a declaration on Sunday, the Onion’s attorneys said that since the announcement of their winning bid, the business has been “harassed and threatened by the Debtor and members of his audience.” Writing that a joint bid “does not amount to collusion” and refuting the notion that there was a lack of openness because the auction used a sealed bid process, they argued that the sale should go forward.
“Sealed bids maintain the competitive tension between bidders and force bidders to offer up their best terms irrespective of where other bids sit,” the attorneys wrote. They further stated, “Far from maintaining this process in secrecy, once the Trustee selected the Successful Bidder, the Trustee publicly disclosed all information about the Qualified Bids, including by disclosing copies of the initial and final bids submitted by each Qualified Bidder.”
While “the judge had some questions about process and assets,” Onion CEO Ben Collins, who previously covered conspiracy theories and misinformation for NBC News, stated on social media that the company’s “bid with the families is clearly the best.”
Collins added that Infowars will be relaunched by the Onion as “the dumbest website on the internet.” The new network will feature well-known online funny writers and content developers, an insider told NBC News.
The Onion announced the transaction in a news release that was written in the satirical voice of the CEO of Global Tetrahedron, the publication’s parent business based in Chicago.
Following the announcement of the sale, Infowars was momentarily shut down before reopening under Jones, who claimed the website had been “hijacked.”
Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump are allegedly looking into the bankruptcy auction in his favor after Musk’s X Corp. filed a notice of appearance in the case, according to Jones, who established a small media empire on spreading false information and conspiracy theories. Since Jones utilizes X to broadcast his show and the issue involves the possible transfer of Jones’ X handle in the sale, X Corp. is assumed to be an interested party.
Jones’ attorneys claimed that First United American Companies ought to be the winning bidder and submitted a request for a temporary restraining order last week to nullify the Onion’s proposal. Despite calling the bidding process “fraudulent,” Jones assured his viewers that he would not be silenced no matter what happened with Infowars.
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