The Onion sets July 2 launch for Infowars reboot despite ongoing court battle with Alex Jones — plans to route more than $100K to Sandy Hook families

Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion, announced the launch date in a staff memo, saying it would feature new programming that parodies Jones’ old show. It will also give more than $100,000 to Sandy Hook families, which it has raised so far from the sale of rainbow-colored Infowars merchandise.

This decision could get the brand in trouble with the courts, as The Onion does not yet officially have permission to publish under the Infowars brand. Collins, though, doesn’t seem to mind.

“Alex is holding Infowars.com hostage,” 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.”

Jones vs. The Onion

Jones and The Onion have been fighting over control of the Infowars website for two years. In 2024, The Onion bought the website with the backing and assistance of the families of victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting.

In a satirical post written by its fictional owner, The Onion wrote of the purchase at that time, saying “No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds. And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special interest group has outwitted the hapless owner of InfoWars (a forgettable man with an already-forgotten name) and forced him to sell it at a steep bargain: less than one trillion dollars.”

Jones was forced to sell his website after the families of the Sandy Hook victims sued him for spreading a false claim that the incident never happened. The families were awarded $1.4 billion in damages in 2022. A federal judge, however, vacated the sale to The Onion, citing transparency issues and a competing bid from a company that had ties to a supplement business owned by Jones.

Earlier this year, The Onion found another way to take over the website. It licensed Infowars.com from the court-appointed manager for $81,000 per month. A state appeals court halted that turnover in April following objections from Jones. The Sandy Hook families have asked the Texas Supreme Court to overrule that hold.

Jones’ finances

Jones has resisted paying the court-ordered damages, mocking them as they were read in court on his show, saying “Do these people actually believe they’re getting any money?”

In 2022, just two months after he was ordered to pay, Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The filing, made with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Houston, said Jones has between $1 million and $10 million in assets.

It also noted that the parent company of Infowars, Free Speech Systems (also owned by Jones) filed for bankruptcy in July 2022. (In a previous Sandy Hook defamation trial, a financial expert testified Jones’s net worth likely ranged between $135 million and $270 million.)