The Onion has purchased Infowars, the infamous rightwing conspiracy theory hub helmed by Alex Jones. And not, this is not a joke — well, for the most part.
Yes, the satirical publication has actually purchased Infowars. From there, its plan involves turning the rightwing site into one big joke.
The Onion bid on InfoWars in a bankruptcy auction after Jones lost a lawsuit brought forth by parents of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting. The Onion said the purchase was supported by those parents. The plan is to turn InfoWars into a website that mocks conspiracy theorists like Jones.
“We thought this would be a hilarious joke,” Ben Collins, the chief executive of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, told the New York Times. “This is going to be our answer to this no-guardrails world where there are no gatekeepers, and everything’s kind of insane.”
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Collins, formerly a disinformation reporter at NBC News, recruited a group fronted by billionaire Jeff Lawson to purchase The Onion earlier this year. The company has since worked to bring back the sort of fun, skewering side of the internet that’s been slowly killed off by the media landscape. Purchasing Infowars seems like the sort of bold step that makes sense for this new version of The Onion. Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit aimed at stopping gun violence, has agreed to advertise on the relaunched Infowars, the Times reported.
Global Tetrahedron dropped a press release on the purchase from its faux CEO Bryce P. Tetraeder. It, of course, poked fun at the paranoia and odd supplements pushed by Jones and Infowars.
The statement read, in part:
“Founded in 1999 on the heels of the Satanic ‘panic’ and growing steadily ever since, InfoWars has distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses. With a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal. They are a true unicorn, capable of simultaneously inspiring public support for billionaires and stoking outrage at an inept federal state that can assassinate JFK but can’t even put a man on the Moon.”
Jones himself responded to the purchase in a video posted to X.
“They said they’re shutting us down, even without a court order,” he said. “The Connecticut Democrats with The Onion newspaper bought us.