Elon Musk’s X is trying to block the transfer of the platform’s InfoWars accounts to the Onion after filing a legal objection stating that it owns users’ accounts.
The social network has filed a “limited objection” to the sale of InfoWars, a media platform run by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, to the satirical news outlet the Onion.
Although X said it did not oppose the sale as a “general matter”, it is arguing that its users do not own their accounts and cannot sell or transfer them without its permission.
“X Corp.’s TOS [terms of service] make clear that it owns the X Accounts, as the TOS is explicit that X Corp. merely grants its users a non-exclusive license to use their accounts,” the company wrote in a filing to a federal court in Texas.
InfoWars was put up for sale at bankruptcy auction after Jones was ordered by court judgments to pay $1.5bn to relatives of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre due to false claims he made about the mass shooting being a “hoax”.
The Onion announced it had bought InfoWars this month but the deal is on hold pending a court hearing next month after Jones and a losing bidder, First United American Companies, objected to the sale. Jones and FUAC, which is affiliated with Jones’s dietary supplements business, have accused the trustee overseeing the auction of colluding with the Onion and the Sandy Hook families.
The trustee, Christopher Murray, has denied the allegations and described them as a “desperate attempt” to delay the sale.
X wrote: “Regardless of the accounts’ use, X Corp. is plainly the owner of the X Accounts and the Services, and the Trustee cannot sell, assign, or otherwise transfer what it does not own or have an interest in.”
Musk has already signalled X’s control of accounts on the platform by taking over the previously dormant @america handle to advertise his pro-Donald Trump super political action committee during the presidential election.
