The Onion’s bid to acquire Infowars has gotten messy

There was a merry triumphalism to the announcement last week that The Onion, a satirical outlet based in Chicago, won an auction to acquire the conspiracy site Infowars out of bankruptcy.

The deal seemed done: Infowars went offline; memes of an apoplectic Alex Jones, its founder, sped across social media; and Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion’s parent company, pronounced the coup “hilarious.”

No one is laughing now.

That sale process has been drawn out by an unexpected twist in the bankruptcy proceedings, when a bidder affiliated with Jones raised an 11th-hour objection to the deal. Since then, court filings have put a spotlight on the final act of the bankruptcy proceedings, which have proved to be just as chaotic as those that preceded them.

The auction’s only other bidder, First United American Companies, which is associated with one of Jones’ online stores, is contesting the sale to The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron. The outcome of that effort will become clear after a hearing Monday, set by Judge Christopher Lopez in a federal bankruptcy court in Houston, to review the bidding process.

The Infowars auction is part of an effort to liquidate Jones’ business and personal assets to satisfy nearly US$1.5bil (RM6.7bil) in damages awarded in 2022 to families of the victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Jones lied about the 2012 shooting for years, saying that the government staged it as a pretext for draconian gun control and that the families were complicit in the plot.

The families of 10 Sandy Hook victims sued Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, in Texas and Connecticut. The Connecticut families and their lawyers are leading the effort to sell Infowars’ key assets to The Onion.

The Onion plans to reintroduce Infowars early next year as a parody of itself, mocking “weird internet personalities” like Jones who traffic in misinformation and health supplements, Collins said in an interview last week.

A lawyer for Jones did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, Collins said Global Tetrahedron had been selected as the winning bidder last week, adding that the sale was continuing as part of “standard processes.”

Last Thursday, at an emergency hearing to contest The Onion’s bid, it emerged that First United had made a cash offer of US$3.5mil (RM15.6mil). That is exactly twice the US$1.75mil (RM7.8mil) in cash offered by The Onion, a figure that was secret until the court battle dragged on. The Onion had sweetened the total value of its bid to US$7mil (RM31.2mil) with the backing of the Sandy Hook families, who essentially opted to put a portion of their potential earnings from the judgment against Jones toward The Onion’s bid.

After his website came back online last week, Jones staged a reentry to his Infowars headquarters carrying a sink, echoing a video that Elon Musk posted online after he bought Twitter, now called X. Lawyers for X, which restored Jones’ once-banned account last year, made an appearance at the hearing last week to notify the court that the social network was reserving its rights with regard to the sale of Jones’ personal account.

Lawyers for the Connecticut families and Christopher R. Murray, the court-appointed trustee who ran the sale, argued that The Onion’s bid package created more value for the creditors, the goal of any bankruptcy. The Jones-affiliated bidder has said it was not given an opportunity to counter The Onion’s bid.

Lawyers for the two sides filed another deluge of legal filings this week. Murray sought to preempt the hearing entirely in a motion asking the judge to declare The Onion the winner. First United repeated its accusations that the families, their Connecticut lawyers and the trustee had improperly colluded and “rigged” the bidding.

A rambling subsequent filing from First United traced Jones’s six-year court battle with the families, including claims that the lawsuits were part of a conspiracy by Democrats and the “deep state” to silence him and kill off his business.

Tuesday morning, the Texas comptroller’s office requested copies of court records and notified the bankruptcy court that it intended to appear in the case.

Jones, a supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, has told his audience that Trump’s allies also oppose the sale. “Trump is pissed, and they’re all watching this,” he said on his first broadcast after the Infowars website was restored.

On Friday, Infowars featured remarks by Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer integral to Trump’s failed efforts to reverse the result of the 2020 presidential election.

“I think people should be looking over their shoulder and thinking about whether they really want to be doing this, to shut down an important media operation,” said Clark, who is director of litigation at the Trump-allied Center for Renewing America. – ©2024 The New York Times Company