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A bankruptcy judge canceled The Onion’s purchase of Infowars on Tuesday, saying the auction did not yield the maximum amount of money for Alex Jones’ creditors and that the process lacked transparency.
“I’m going to not approve the sale to the purchaser. I think there’s a great lack of clarity here,” U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez said after a lengthy hearing that stretched into Tuesday night.
Lopez did not order a new auction. He left it to the trustee, Christopher Murray, to decide how to resolve the matter.
Lopez’s decision means that Jones can continue to broadcast on Infowars in the meantime. The Onion, whose bid was backed by some families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, previously said that it intended to relaunch Infowars as a website to parody figures like Jones.
Ben Collins, the CEO of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, said in a statement that they are “deeply disappointed” by the decision but will continue to pursue their purchase of Infowars.
“We appreciate that the court repeatedly recognized The Onion acted in good faith, but are disappointed that everyone was sent back to the drawing board with no winner, and no clear path forward for any bidder,” he said.
Jones had fiercely protested The Onion’s purchase of Infowars. He accused Murray of colluding with The Onion and the Sandy Hook families. First United American Companies (FUAC), a company affiliated with one of Jones’ online supplement stores that entered a losing bid, also protested the auction results, saying it offered twice as much cash as the winning bid. The Onion’s bid, however, included a pledge from the families to forgo some of the proceeds so that other creditors would get more money than the higher cash bid, which the trustee determined was better for creditors.
Lopez said that although Murray acted in good faith, the auction process was not transparent and FUAC should have been allowed a chance to improve its bid.
“I think you’ve got to go out and try to get every dollar,” Lopez said. “I think that the process fell down.”
Although Infowars’ downfall was widely celebrated after news broke that The Onion had won the auction, the handover came to an abrupt halt later that day when Lopez expressed dissatisfaction over the auction process.
Jones praised the judge’s decision in a video broadcast on X on Tuesday night, saying, “Finally, a judge followed the law.”
Jones is still on the hook for nearly $1.5 billion to the Sandy Hook families, whom he tormented for years on his platform. He filed for bankruptcy protection to avoid paying toward the judgment but later agreed to liquidate his assets, which includes Infowars, to help pay down that debt.
Christopher Mattei, an attorney for the Sandy Hook families, said that his clients were disappointed by Lopez’s ruling, but they “remain resilient and determined as ever to hold Alex Jones and his corrupt businesses accountable for the harm he has caused.”