InfoWars has a new owner—and it’s likely not who anyone expected.
The Onion, the satirical news site whose headlines include “CIA Realizes It’s Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years” and “Kitten Thinks of Nothing but Murder All Day,” has bought the conspiracy-theory website and more founded by Alex Jones. And in a twist that sounds ripped from the site’s own headlines, the families of victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting helped the deal come together.
A statement from the attorney of eight families affected by the tragedy said those parents had “agreed to forgo a portion of their recovery to increase the overall value of The Onion’s bid,” which allowed the bid to succeed. The purchase price of InfoWars was not disclosed.
The Onion plans to relaunch InfoWars in January as a parody of Jones and other online personalities that spread misinformation. In addition to the InfoWars website, The Onion now controls its production studio and diet supplement business that helped to make Jones millions.
In a satirical post written by its fictional owner, The Onion wrote of the purchase, saying “No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds. And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special interest group has outwitted the hapless owner of InfoWars (a forgettable man with an already-forgotten name) and forced him to sell it at a steep bargain: less than one trillion dollars.”
The actual CEO of The Onion’s parent company told the New York Times. “We thought this would be a hilarious joke. This is going to be our answer to this no-guardrails world where there are no gatekeepers and everything’s kind of insane.”
Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit dedicated to ending gun violence, will advertise on a relaunched version of the site.
Jones was forced to sell his site after parents of Sandy Hook victims sued him after he spread the claim the shooting never happened. They were awarded $1.4 billion in damages in 2022.
Families had been concerned that associates or fans of Jones would buy InfoWars and keep Jones on air as the host, with regular broadcasts.