Satirical news outlet The Onion has purchased Infowars, the right-wing media platform of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, in a court-ordered auction.

The news was confirmed in a video on Thursday morning by Jones himself and the head of Onion’s parent company.

“I was just told 15 minutes ago that my lawyers and people had a meeting with the US bankruptcy trustee this morning about our bankruptcy, and they said they’re going to close us down this morning even without a court order,” Jones said in a video posted on shared. “The Connecticut Democrats at The Onion newspaper bought us.”

The Onion plans to rebuild the website and add well-known internet humor writers and content creators.

CEO Ben Collins confirmed this in a post on Bluesky on Thursday, writing: “The Onion, with the help of the Sandy Hook families, has purchased InfoWars. We plan to make it a very funny, very stupid website. We enlisted the services of several Onion and Clickhole Hall of Famers to make this happen.”

“I can’t wait to show you what we’ve come up with,” Collins added.

In another post on Bluesky, Collins said that “part of the reason we bought InfoWars is because people on Bluesky told us it would be funny to buy InfoWars,” adding that “those people were right” this was “the funniest is that ever happened. happened”.

The purchase includes the acquisition of Jones’ company’s intellectual property, such as its website, customer lists, inventory and certain social media accounts, and production equipment, according to CNN. The amount of the offer has not been disclosed.

In the immediate aftermath of the news becoming public, Jones began live streaming on X and denounced his site’s sales. Speaking to The Onion and others, Jones told viewers it is “a great honor to be here, in defiance of the tyrants”. He emphasized that no one told him he couldn’t go live.

Jones also started rambling about the incoming administration of Donald Trump, telling viewers things like, “This is the fight. If you think the deep state has given up, think again…America is awake now.”

The sale follows a judge’s order earlier this year for Jones to liquidate his personal assets to help him pay off the $1.4 billion he owed to the families of the Sandy shooting victims Hook school in 2012, killing 20 first-graders and six people. teachers after they sued him for defamation after he falsely claimed the shooting was a hoax and that actors were the ones who staged the shooting as part of a government plan to confiscate Americans’ guns.

Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022.

In order for the bid to succeed, an attorney representing the families told CNN that the families “agreed to forgo a portion of their recovery to increase the overall value of The Onion’s bid, thereby increasing its success would become possible.”

“After surviving unimaginable loss with courage and integrity, they rejected Jones’s empty offers for supposedly more money if they would just let him stay on the air, because doing so would have endangered other families,” said Chris Mattei, a lawyer for the families.

In a social media post earlier this week, Mattei added that “this week’s breakup of Infowars is just the beginning of Alex Jones’s lesson in responsibility” and that the families will “go after his future income and any new Infowars owner as a vehicle for Jones’ continued control of the company”.