Jones accused The Onion of planning to “misrepresent” him in an attempt to “confuse people” and defame him

Satirical news site The Onion says it has finally struck a deal to take over Infowars, the right-wing conspiracy website run by Alex Jones.

Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion announced the news on Monday. “This is the culmination of a two-year-long effort to get some justice for the Sandy Hook families,” he posted on LinkedIn.

Jones took to X to lament the news later on Monday, claiming The Onion was “in deep shit” and stating that he was “already suing the Democratic party law firms” and has “civil rights lawsuits.” Appearing shirtless behind the Infowars desk, Jones alleged the satirical news site was planning to “misrepresent” him in an attempt to “confuse people” and defame him. “Just because you’re wearing my shirt, don’t mean you’re me,” Jones said.

The takeover was first discussed in September 2024, when The Onion bid $1.75 million for Infowars during a bankruptcy auction after families of Sandy Hook victims won a defamation suit against Jones and Infowars. A judge blocked the sale two months later. Collins now says The Onion has solidified a deal with Gregory Milligan, the court-appointed Infowars site manager.

Per the terms, Global Tetrahedron, parent company of The Onion, will pay $81,000 a month for six months to license Inforwars.com and its associated intellectual property, as The New York Times reports. There is an option to renew for an additional six months. While the licensing deal has been reached between The Onion and the court-appointed manager, it still must be approved by Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Texas’ Travis County District Court, who is overseeing the disposition of Infowars. Plus, Jones could appeal the decision. Reps for Jones and Infowars did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for comment.

On Monday evening following reports of the deal, Jones took to social media to dispute the news. “The Onion Has Fraudulently Claimed AGAIN That It Owns Infowars!!!,” Jones posted on X, while also promoting his livestream. “The Democrat Party Disinformation Publication Is Publicly Bragging About Its Plan To Silence Alex Jones’ Infowars And Then Steal & Misrepresent His Identity! This Takes The Term ‘Frame Job’ To The Next Level!”

“A lot of institutions and people gave up on doing the right thing over the last two years. Despite an insane amount of threats and bullshit, we persevered,” Collins said in a statement via Variety. “Eight years, almost to the day, after the Sandy Hook parents first filed suit against Alex Jones, they’ll finally get some justice, and even some money. You will get a new home for funny things on the internet, a tote bag with a good logo on it and a great newspaper made by human beings in your real-life mailbox.”

Pending court approval, The Onion plans to launch a comedy site via Infowars.com parodying Jones’ conspiracies. Collins also announced that the comedian-actor-musician Tim Heidecker will serve as Infowars’ creative director. “With the help of the Sandy Hook families, The Onion has reached a long-awaited deal to take over InfoWars,” Collins wrote on Bluesky.

Heidecker told the Times that he hopes to eventually make Infowars a place for independent and experimental comedy. “I just thought it would be just a beautiful joke if we could take this pretty toxic, negative, destructive force of Infowars and rebrand it as this beautiful place for our creativity,” Heidecker said. 

“The goal for the families we represent has always been to prevent Alex Jones from being able to cause harm at scale, the way he did against them,” Chris Mattei, the lawyer who argued the Sandy Hook families’ case in court, told the Times. He added that the deal with The Onion promises “to significantly degrade his power to do that.”

This article was updated to include Jones responding to the news of the deal via social media.