The Onion’s Infowars Takeover Follows Complicated Legal Journey

The Onion’s fresh effort to wrest control of right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars platform involves a unique strategy to help Sandy Hook Elementary School victims’ families, but it must first overcome potential legal hurdles.

The licensing deal with the satircal news site announced April 20 by a court-appointed receiver for Infowars’ parent is the latest chapter in a legal saga that started more than three years ago, when Jones filed for bankruptcy owing more than $1.3 billion in defamation-related judgments to the 2012 shooting victims’ families.

“The biggest reason we want this thing is because the families still don’t get money at all,” Onion CEO Ben Collins said in an interview. “The way to get the money is to buy this from the estate and take it off their hands.”

Under the proposal, The Onion would take over Infowars’ trademark and associated domains, including infowars.com, for $81,000 a month over six months. The motion is subject to a Texas state court judge’s approval.

A Legal Morass

The deal with War Is Over LLC, an affiliate of The Onion owner Global Tetrahedron LLC, aims to generate revenue to cover operational costs and preserve the value of Infowars’ assets while a broader litigation pause—due to Jones’ appeals of underlying judgments—prevents a permanent sale.

The path to that purchase runs through the temporary license. Collins said the tipping point came when Jones appeared on a March podcast suggesting Infowars would shut down within a month, which Collins initially thought was a fundraising ploy. But when he checked with the receiver, he was told the estate was out of money, couldn’t pay rent, and was shutting down.

“The asset has much less value to us as a dead asset,” Collins said. “We’ll pay rent. We might even increase the value of the asset.”

The legal background is complicated.

Gregory Milligan of HMP Advisory Holdings LLC was appointed receiver over Infowars parent Free Speech Systems LLC twice, first in August last year on behalf of Sandy Hook families who won a $1.28 billion judgment from a Connecticut state court and again in October on behalf of families who won a smaller $50 million Texas judgment. The first appointment was paused by a Texas appellate court.

Milligan is resting the licensing push on authority from the second order, which remains in effect, but an appeal by Jones seems likely. Free Speech Systems has filed 14 state court appeals against Sandy Hook families, according to their lawyers.

Jones, on his show this week, said he plans to fight The Onion.

“Just cause you’re wearing my shirt don’t mean you’re me,” Jones, who appeared shirtless, said. He didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Jones has previously fought back on takeover threats and won. Houston Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez, who’s handling Jones’ Chapter 7 case, blocked a bid by The Onion to acquire Infowars’ assets in December 2024, citing a lack of transparency in the auction process.

In January, Jones’ bankruptcy trustee won bankruptcy court approval to turn over nearly $4 million in cash to Milligan. But it can’t be distributed due to the ongoing Texas appeal.

Collins said he’s not deterred as an April Texas state court hearing approaches.

“I’m more than confident that this will go in our favor,” he said.

Licensing

Free Speech Systems’ receiver told the Texas state court that several vendor contracts are expiring and that revenue is necessary to make weekly payroll obligations and cover rent, insurance, and other costs.

Rebecca Tushnet, a First Amendment professor at Harvard Law School, said there shouldn’t be any trademark issues.

“Just as the Washington Post is still the Washington Post even with new editorial policies or Random House doesn’t have a trademark problem even if the books it publishes vary widely in quality, the focus on using Infowars as a trademark for a publication at a particular domain name is likely fine,” Tushnet said.

James W. Volberding, an attorney and CPA with Volberding Legal Group PLLC, said Milligan is acting within his mandate.

“Preserving assets and cash is a core function of a receiver,” Volberding said. “He does not intend to violate the stay by the appellate court. To the contrary, he seeks to protect assets to provide the appellate court time to make decisions.”

Model for the Future

Collins said the company intends to relaunch Infowars as a satirical property and enlisted comedian Tim Heidecker to spearhead the creative effort.

The Onion would also have access to archival text and video, social media accounts, and digital infrastructure.

The appeal of Infowars as a vehicle goes beyond irony, Collins said.

“The best way to defend against people like Alex Jones is to make fun of them,” he said, “to expose how ridiculous the whole thing is, how it’s all a scam to make money.”

David Shoemaker, a Cornell University professor studying the ethics of humor and satire, said the arrangement could offer a template for confronting harmful media platforms—using mockery while redirecting money to victims.

“I think it presents a really interesting kind of model for the future,” Shoemaker said. “In which there’s a way in which you can take over existing platforms and to try to undo some of what you take to be the damage that they’ve done directly.”

Collins said even if there are appeals, it’s a worthwhile fight.

“I just think there should be some line in American life where somebody stands up against something so obviously evil,” Collins said. “I decided this is the thing.”