Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' Infowars media platform and its assets will be sold off piece by piece in auctions this fall to help pay the more than $1 billion he owes relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, under an order expected to be approved by a federal judge, the AP reports. US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston said during a court hearing Tuesday that he will approve the auctions that start in November. But he said he first must change a previous order to make it clear that the trustee overseeing Jones' personal bankruptcy case controls all the assets of Infowars' parent company Free Speech Systems, which is owned 100% by Jones. Despite the pending loss of his company, Jones vows to continue his talk shows through other means, possibly including a new website and his personal social media accounts.
He also has suggested that Infowars' assets could be bought by his supporters, allowing him to continue hosting his show as an employee under the Infowars brand in their home city of Austin, Texas. Jones and his company both filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022—the same year Sandy Hook families won nearly $1.5 billion in defamation and emotional distress lawsuits against Jones for his repeatedly calling the 2012 school shooting a hoax staged by "crisis actors" to get more gun control legislation passed. Twenty first graders and six educators were killed in the Newtown, Connecticut shooting. Jones is appealing the civil jury verdicts.
In June, Lopez converted Jones' personal bankruptcy reorganization case into a liquidation, meaning many of his assets will be sold off to pay creditors except for his main home and other exempt property. The same day, Lopez also dismissed Free Speech Systems' bankruptcy case after Jones and the families could not reach agreement on a final plan. The sell-off order Lopez intends to approve would put Infowars' intellectual property up for auction on Nov. 13 including its trademarks, copyrighted material, social media accounts, and websites. Jones' personal social media sites, including his account on the social platform X, which has 2.8 million followers, would not be included, though the trustee overseeing Jones' bankruptcy case says he may soon seek court permission to include them; he also is expected to sell many of Jones' personal assets. Infowars' production equipment, online vitamin store, and more will also be auctioned off, NPR reports. (Much more on the complicated ins and outs here.)