The Onion has announced it will begin streaming Infowars parody content every Thursday at 8 p.m. this summer, bypassing the stalled Texas court proceedings entirely.
The company’s CEO Ben Collins confirmed the plans on social media, saying “The new InfoWars will livestream every Thursday at 8 p.m. this summer across any platform you watch video” and that they have “grand designs.”
The move comes after years of legal obstruction by Alex Jones, who was ordered to pay more than $1 billion to families of children and staff murdered in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Rather than pay, Jones filed for personal bankruptcy and on behalf of his company Free Speech Systems, LLC in 2022, using the proceedings to delay, restructure, and ultimately protect his assets.
US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez ruled in October 2023 that the vast majority of damage awards could not be discharged in bankruptcy, as they involved willful and malicious torts.
Judge Lopez then dismissed the Free Speech Systems bankruptcy in June 2024 and converted Jones’s personal case to a Chapter 7 liquidation, which should have cleared a path for creditors.
The Texas plaintiffs secured a turnover order in Travis County allowing them to seize Free Speech Systems assets, but Judge Lopez blocked this through what became known in the case as the “deeming order.”
That order stated that all Free Speech Systems property “shall be deemed to have vested in the bankruptcy estate of Alexander E. Jones,” creating a legal fiction to allow a trustee to auction the assets.
The Onion won that auction in November 2024 despite submitting a lower bid, because its offer made the Texas plaintiffs financially better off than the higher competing bid would have.
Judge Lopez voided that sale in December 2024, finding the offer had too many variables and failed to maximise value for creditors, sending the parties back to the drawing board.
Jones’s lawyer Ben Broocks has continued arguing before Texas courts that the deeming order remains operative and that Free Speech Systems therefore holds no assets, despite the bankruptcy judge repeatedly ruling otherwise.
Texas plaintiffs’ lawyer Mark Bankston accused Jones’s legal team of misconduct, telling Judge Maya Guerra Gamble that “Jones’ lawyers put a false statement in front of him and had him sign it. And they knew it was a false statement.”
Judge Gamble appointed a receiver and authorised a turnover, but Broocks secured an unexplained administrative stay from Texas’s Third Court of Appeals in August 2025 that has now sat unresolved for ten months.
In April 2026, The Onion struck a deal with the receiver to lease Infowars content and IP for $81,000 a month, with funds going directly to Sandy Hook families who have not yet received a single dollar from Jones.
Comedian Tim Heidecker was set to host a show featuring a deadpan impression of Jones, but the Third Court blocked that arrangement too, again without any articulated reasoning.
The Sandy Hook families subsequently petitioned the Texas Supreme Court for emergency relief, and the court finally ordered Jones to reply by July 6.
Jones allowed Infowars to go dark after a dramatic livestream outside the studio, reportedly directing supporters to a lookalike site while allegedly taking five years of archived content with him.
Collins told reporters that The Onion had “operated in good faith this entire time,” adding that Jones “has no right to use Infowars’ brand and logo and has been using them for months.”
The new Infowars parody channels will route more than $100,000 to Sandy Hook families, drawn from merchandise The Onion has already sold in anticipation of completing its takeover of the brand.
Collins was direct about his intentions, saying “We still want to do an Infowars parody that goes after this dumb asshole, and all the rest of these dumb assholes that ruined the internet.”