Alex Jones owes nearly $1.5 billion in defamation and other damages to the families of multiple victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, but for a time, it wasn’t known whether his Infowars media platform would be in jeopardy to pay off some of that debt, thanks to its complex web of corporate ownership. But a judge recently approved a motion to auction off Infowars “piece by piece” according to an Associated Press report, and now the future of the company is in even more serious doubt.
Jones has promised his viewers that he doesn’t intend to go away, continuing to produce content under a new brand name and his own personal social media, and he has also reportedly floated the idea that some of his supporters might end up purchasing Infowars at auction, which is currently slated to begin sometime in November. If that happened, Jones could theoretically continue Infowars much as it has always operated, but as an employee rather than an owner, and with the money from the sale going towards the Sandy Hook families.
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Jones was hit by civil lawsuits in both Texas and Connecticut in connection with his repeated claims that the 2012 shooting was a staged event and that families of the murdered children were “crisis actors.” He and his company, Free Speech Systems, both declared bankruptcy in 2022 after losing both cases, but in June, his personal bankruptcy was converted to a liquidation by which many of his own assets will be sold off to pay the damages, and the corporate bankruptcy was tossed out due to Jones’s inability to come to terms with the families. This included an offered settlement of $55 million that was unanimously rejected.
Now, Infowars is going under a similar liquidation process, which will reportedly include all of its trademarks, copyrights, and social media accounts. But for whatever reason, Jones’s own personal social media is not included in the scheduled auction slate. That is the subject of yet another legal battle between Jones and Christopher Murray, the trustee in control of Jones’s personal bankruptcy case. He has recently signaled his desire to liquidate Jones’s social media accounts and other intellectual property, including Jones’s 2.8-million-follower-strong account on X (formerly Twitter), but Jones is fighting in court to prevent that from happening.
The Sandy Hook families collecting damages from Jones aren’t just interested in money but want to see Jones prevented from spreading the kinds of hoaxes that caused them so much distress. For that reason, they want to see his social media accounts liquidated along with Infowars, as he would have to start from scratch on building a social media following for any of his future activities.
There are also physical pieces of Infowars property that are set to be sold off in a separate auction scheduled for December. This will include video cameras, studio equipment, computers, and other odds and ends.