Infowars host Alex Jones during a protest in Washington in 2020.
Zach Gibson / Getty Images file
Bidders interested in acquiring the media company founded by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones will battle it out at a bankruptcy auction Wednesday, potentially silencing his Infowars broadcasting platform for good.
But identities of potential buyers are undisclosed as they had to agree to nondisclosure agreements in order to receive bid materials. Jones says his fate and the future of his company, Free Speech Systems, depends on who is successful: the entities who either support him or the families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims.
On his show Monday, amid pleas for listeners to buy subscriptions and the nutritional supplements he sells, Jones painted a picture of his potential buyers, describing one group of anonymous bidders as friendly backers who would allow his show to operate as normal. Others, he said, were "bad guys" who would shut Infowars down.
While he said he would continue to broadcast via an alternative channel if ordered to shutter by a new buyer, Jones noted he would be hampered by the loss of his brand, website and equipment, among other necessities.
"All you leftists celebrating the end of Alex Jones and Infowars, you're fools," he said. "Just watch."
A number of potential buyers have been floated in recent weeks, from some who have spoken publicly about their interest, including Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President-elect Donald Trump, to others who have been propped up on social media to consider the opportunity, such as tech billionaire Elon Musk and the owners of the satirical news site The Onion. Stone, Musk and The Onion did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The auction firms running the sale said that there are "no restrictions on the use of any acquired property in the bankruptcy order," and that the winner has the discretion whether or not to continue Infowars' operations.
Ultimately, the federal court-appointed trustee, Christopher Murray, will distribute the funds generated from the sale, which is meant to satisfy the estate creditors, comprised largely of the Sandy Hook victims' families to whom Jones must pay damages in defamation verdicts.
Up for grabs are Infowars production rights and materials, the Infowars store, domain names, production equipment and other assets — including a Terradyne armored truck and a Winnebago motorhome — that can be purchased in their entirety or in parts, according to the firm, ThreeSixty Asset Advisors. Jones broadcasts from the Austin, Texas, area. Anything not sold would be part of a second auction next month.
The firm told The Associated Press there was a large number of inquiries among potential bidders.
Jay Westbrook, a University of Texas bankruptcy law professor, said the ultimate goal would be to earn a "maximum return for the victims."
The auction process itself is typically quick, he added, "but if an interested party objects to the procedure, there could be a court hearing that delays a final result. Given the politics, I would not be surprised to see an objection."
Callie Kalny, co-director of the Center of Media Psychology & Social Influence at Northwestern University, said that regardless of who wins, Jones has made it clear he will remain broadcasting in some form, including on X, which is owned by Musk.
"Of course, having a supporter win the auction may make operations a bit easier for him moving forward, but as long as there are people who want to hear his message, he will likely continue to share it," she said. "In other words, you can remove Alex Jones from Infowars, but you can't separate him from that ethos — those core principles and approach to understanding the world aren’t likely to vanish simply because the platform or brand changes."
The auction is part of Murray's "orderly wind-down process" under the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, which has overseen the latest phase of the case against Jones, stemming from the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
Victims' families filed lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas accusing Jones of defaming them on his show and inflicting emotional distress by repeatedly suggesting that the shooting, in which a gunman killed 20 first-grade children and six adults, was a hoax.
Juries awarded the families almost $1.5 billion but they have been unable to collect anything from Jones, who said he couldn't afford that massive a sum. He filed for bankruptcy in late 2022, and a judge in June allowed him to liquidate his personal assets to help pay off the verdicts.
Jones, 50, founded Infowars, which operates under Free Speech Systems, in 1999. How much the auction might net remains unclear, but the company itself holds about $6 million in cash and $1.2 million in inventory, according to previous court filings.
The families in the Texas and Connecticut lawsuits have sparred in court over the liquidation process, with concerns over how the money will be distributed. Still, they have said, Jones' loss of his company brings some accountability for his past words.
At his trial in Texas in 2022, Jones generally blamed "corporate media" for twisting his words and inaccurately portraying him but didn’t specify how.
While Jones testified that he believes Sandy Hook was "100% real," he has used the ongoing litigation to galvanize his listeners as he faces the loss of Infowars.
"We need more funds to ensure we're full power when we continue our assault," Jones said on his show Tuesday, while also saying he has another studio from which to broadcast should Infowars go to a "hostile buyer."
Roy Gutterman, a communications professor at Syracuse University and the director of its Tully Center for Free Speech, said Jones appears unlikely to back down after his decades of incendiary rhetoric.
"Despite the judgment, Alex Jones still has a First Amendment right to speak his mind and continue to speak about anything he wants," he said. "New statements could create new potential liability, but this appears to be a risk he is willing to take."
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R, is that the trustee that was supposed to run things definitely fucked up, deliberately. I don't personally spend a lot of time in bankruptcy court, much less in Texas, but I know what a pissed off judge sounds like. This one is steamed - and the big takeaway is that he's ordered an evidentiary hearing to get to the bottom of it.