Conspiracy theorist and right-wing media personality Alex Jones sued on Monday to challenge the sale of his Infowars platform to the parent company satirical news outlet The Onion and the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook mass school shooting.
Jones alleged in a filing in Texas bankruptcy court on Monday that “conspiratorial negotiation and agreement” involving his bankruptcy trustee and a “flagrantly non-compliant Frankenstein bid” led to the Sandy Hook families and Global Tetrahedron, The Onion’s parent company, winning an auction last week for the site.
Infowars went up for sale after Jones declared personal and corporate bankruptcy in 2022. He faces more than $1bn in damages he owes to the families for defamation after claiming the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax.
Jones’s filing on Monday alleges the winning bidders in the bankruptcy auction for Infowars submitted an offer that only appeared more valuable than the $3.5m bid from a company associated with his online store. He claims The Onion’s bid was worth $1.75m on its own, but managed to appear more valuable in the aggregate because the Connecticut-based Sandy Hook families agreed to forgo some of the funds they’d earn from the sale, meaning a separate group of families who won a different defamation suit against Jones would receive a higher ultimate payout from the Jones estate.
Global Tetrahedron hasn’t publicly described the value of its bid.
The Independent has contacted The Onion’s CEO Ben Collins for comment.
Christopher R. Murray, the bankruptcy trustee overseeing the sale of Jones’s assets, responded to the filing on Monday, painting Jones’s move as “a disappointed bidder’s improper attempt to influence an otherwise fair and open auction process.”
Jones, he argued, “alleges, without evidence, collusion and bad faith in an attempt to mislead the Court and disqualify its only competition in the auction.”
Lawyers for the Sandy Hook families also said they would not back down.
“At every step, the families we represent have sought to hold Jones accountable to the fullest extent of the law and to protect others from his lies,” attorney Chris Mattei toldThe Wall Street Journal on Monday. “They will not be intimidated, and they look forward to bringing this process to a just conclusion at the earliest possible date.”
A status conference is scheduled in the case for November 25.
“The joint bid from Global Tetrahedron and the Connecticut families has been selected as the winning bid for InfoWars,” Collins, The Onion’s CEO, told The Independent in a statement after the sale last week. “The sale is currently underway as part of the standard processes.”
The judge overseeing the case said last week “no one should feel comfortable with the results of this auction.”
“We’re all going to an evidentiary hearing and I’m going to figure out exactly what happened,” District Judge Christopher Lopez said in court during a status conference. “I personally don’t care who wins the auction … I care about process and transparency.”
Jones, in his final broadcast before the original sale, claimed the “deep state gestapo” was conspiring to shut down his broadcasts.
Lawyers for X, which reinstated Jones’s account on the platform in December, notified the trustees in the case they were reserving their rights regarding the sale of Jone’s account on the social media site.
Alex Woodward contributed reporting to this story
