Alex Jones linked company fighting to reclaim Infowars after Onion sale voided: report
A company linked to far-right webcaster Alex Jones is upping the bidding to keep the Infowars platform in his hands amid bankruptcy, reported The Independent on Monday.
"First United American Companies, which runs a website in Jones’ name that sells nutritional supplements, submitted the new offer even though there was no request to do so, Joshua Wolfshohl, an attorney for the trustee overseeing Jones' bankruptcy, told a bankruptcy court judge at a hearing in Houston," said the report. "Wolfshohl said the trustee is also expecting a new offer soon from The Onion's parent company, Chicago-based Global Tetrahedron."
First United American initially made a bid of $3.5 million, which has now been doubled to $7 million.
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The Onion, a satirical news website, made waves when it purchased Infowars' assets at auction last year after the assets were seized to satisfy Jones' bankruptcy, and they planned to fire Jones and relaunch the brand as a parody of itself. However, in December, a bankruptcy judge voided the deal because the bidding process was not transparent or fair. The judge, Christopher Lopez, left the next steps to the trustee, declining to immediately order another auction.
Jones' bankruptcy stems from a series of defamation judgments against him totaling over $1 billion, won by the families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. Jones repeatedly told his listeners, with no evidence, that the massacre was staged by the government, leading to years of harassment that upended the lives of many of those families.
"Most of the proceeds from the sale of Infowars, as well as from many of Jones’ personal assets that are being sold, will go to the Sandy Hook families to help satisfy the defamation judgments. Some of the proceeds will go to Jones’ other creditors," said the report. However, "it's still not clear how the sale of [Infowars'] assets will proceed," and it's also not clear exactly what will happen to the show, which is headquartered in Austin, Texas.