A judge late Tuesday night said he would not approve the sale of Infowars, the website founded by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, to the Chicago-based satirical publication The Onion, prolonging a messy tug of war between two high-profile suitors.

The ruling, by Judge Christopher Lopez in federal bankruptcy court in Houston, poses a roadblock for The Onion’s plan to take possession of the Infowars site and its associated assets after it won an auction last month. The Onion’s bid was backed by the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, who in 2022 won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Jones.

Jones spent years claiming that the 2012 school shooting was a hoax and that victims’ family members were actors complicit in the plot. The Onion has said that it wants to turn Infowars into a satirical site mocking the kind of conspiracy theories that Jones spreads.

Lopez’s ruling put the fate of Infowars in limbo. He instructed a court-appointed trustee, Christopher Murray, to come up with an alternative resolution, though it was not immediately clear what approach Murray would take. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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CEO of Global Tetrahedron Says The Onion Is ‘Deeply Disappointed’

Ben Collins, the CEO of Global Tetrahedron, The Onion’s parent company, said the publication was “deeply disappointed” by Tuesday’s decision.

He added that The Onion would “continue to seek a resolution that helps the Sandy Hook families receive a positive outcome for the horror they endured,” adding that the company would continue its pursuit of Infowars in the coming weeks.

Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Sandy Hook families, said that his clients, too, were disappointed.

“These families, who have already persevered through countless delays and roadblocks, remain resilient and determined as ever to hold Alex Jones and his corrupt businesses accountable for the harm he has caused,” Mattei said.

A lawyer for Jones did not respond to an email seeking comment. In a video broadcast on the social platform X, Jones said, “Finally, a judge followed the law.”

“I’m not a litigious person, but they’re trying to destroy us and destroy free speech, so you know what’s going to happen to them,” he said. He suggested that the groups involved with The Onion bid colluded to rig their bid and would be investigated by the Justice Department.

Lopez said that the bankruptcy auction failed to maximize the amount of money that the sale of Infowars should provide to Jones’ creditors, including the Sandy Hook families, in part because the bids were submitted in secret.

“It seemed doomed almost from the moment they decided to go to a sealed bid,” Lopez said. “Nobody knows what anybody else is bidding,” he added.

The case ultimately hinged on austere matters of protocol. The arguments over two days of hearings boiled down to whether Murray adhered to the law when he solicited bids and ultimately picked The Onion’s parent company as the winner.

The Bid was $7 Million

The total value of The Onion’s bid was $7 million, including $1.75 million in cash put up by its parent company, with the rest coming from the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, who essentially opted to put a portion of their potential earnings from a defamation judgment against Jones toward The Onion’s bid.

The hearing began Monday with opening arguments from lawyers representing Global Tetrahedron, and First United American Cos., a bidder affiliated with Jones. Much of the back-and-forth was focused on whether the Sandy Hook victims could apply their partial judgment to The Onion’s bid.

Not including the backing of the Sandy Hook families, First United American Cos. had a higher bid, offering $3.5 million in cash. But Jeff Tanenbaum, an expert who advised the court-appointee trustee on the sale, said that the combined bid with the Sandy Hook families was superior.

Before the hearing, Jones argued in a filing that the Sandy Hook families and Global Tetrahedron had improperly colluded on their bid, making “a mockery of a fair and transparent auction and bidding process.”

As the drama played out in court, Jones billed his broadcast on X as the “final Infowars broadcast ever,” inaccurately telling viewers that the company was being sold to billionaire Michael Bloomberg. He criticized the bankruptcy trustee’s process as an “Alice in Wonderland-level bizarroland.”

Although the hearing started off in decorous fashion, it got increasingly heated. At one point, a lawyer for the bidder associated with Jones questioned how the Sandy Hook families could afford “all these lawyers,” a remark that drew immediate objections.

In his remarks, Lopez acknowledged that the case involved “lots of emotion” from supporters of The Onion and fans of Jones. He concluded that — despite some “good-faith errors” — neither side did “anything wrong here.”

“You’ve got to scratch and claw and get everything you can for everyone else,” he said.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Benjamin Mullin and Elizabeth Williamson
c. 2024 The New York Times Company