After satirical paper The Onion bought right-wing conspiracy site Infowars, it faced legal obstacles — but now the people behind it say they're launching a new Infowars and sidestepping the courts.
The founder of Infowars, Alex Jones, declared bankruptcy in 2022 following defamation lawsuits from families of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, which Jones claimed was a hoax. He was ordered to pay them $1.3 billion in damages, and The Onion won an auction bid for Infowars in 2024 — but a judge swiftly blocked the sale.
Then, in April 2026, The Onion announced a new way to buy the outlet: a licensing deal that would allow The Onion to publish on Infowars' site and start paying the Sandy Hook families. But that has faced legal challenges too, MS NOW reported, and The Onion has decided not to wait for the courts to relaunch the website.
"Alex is holding Infowars.com hostage," CEO of The Onion, Ben Collins, told MS NOW. "He's trying to intentionally degrade the assets so these families can never sell them, and the courts have largely obliged. We're tired of waiting around."
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The refreshed Infowars is now set to launch on July 2 with original programming, with comedian Tim Heidecker as creative director. Heidecker, who's known for Adult Swim shows such as Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! with his creative partner Eric Wareheim, will host a parody of Jones's old Infowars show. An "emergency" statement from Heidecker (doing a Jones impression) has already been published on YouTube.
Other shows coming to Infowars this summer, according to MS NOW, are The Jim Haggerty Show and a documentary-style film called Birth of a Nation, which has the same name as the racist 1915 film featuring the Ku Klux Klan.
In an April interview with TIME, Heidecker said there will be a "transition phase" of doing Onion-style parody, and he eventually wants to turn Infowars into a "destination for good comedy — a new streaming site, a new comedy platform." He also stated that the team hopes this will be profitable and "provide nice, healthy budgets for young creators to make interesting things for the world."
He reiterated this in a June interview with WIRED, stating that "there will be a sense of curation" of comedy coming out of Infowars, "the same way Adult Swim was a brand."