Satirical publication The Onion has come up with a new plan to acquire Infowars after a bankruptcy court scuttled the previous attempt.
Infowars, the website founded by right-wing conspiracist Alex Jones, went for sale two years ago and an unlikely buyer, The Onion, came up with a plan to buy the website and turn it into a parody of itself.
The Onion now wants to license the website from Gregory Milligan, the court-appointed manager of the site and the satirical news outlet offered $81,000 a month to license the Infowars.com domain name for the first six months, with an opportunity to renew the deal in case both parties agree.
According to the New York Times, although the administrator of the website and The Onion have already agreed to the licensing deal, it will not be effective unless Travis County District Court Judge Guerra Gamble approves it.
Alex Jones, who continues to operate the website and host its weekday program “The Alex Jones Show” has yet to react to the deal proposed by The Onion. A final decision by the judge is expected within the next two weeks.
Jones is a well-known conspiracy theorist and he has opposed the proposed takeover by The Onion. Infowars is in limbo due to a series of lawsuits brought against Jones by the victims of mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012, Jones claimed it to be a hoax.
Rough estimates from 2018 suggest that Infowars website was getting over 1 million visitors everyday, which has been in decline since then.
Jones filed for bankruptcy last year. To repay debts to the Sandy Hook families and other creditors, Judge Christopher Lopez of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court ordered in mid-2024 that a trustee sell equipment, intellectual property, and other assets owned by Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars.
