Media Matters for America, a left-wing watchdog group, is mulling the purchase of Alex Jones’ InfoWars after a Texas judge ruled the outlet could be liquidated to pay the families of the victims of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, according to a report.
Texas and Connecticut courts ruled that conspiracy theorist Jones must pay the families $1.5 billion in damages for repeatedly claiming the shooting never happened. Last week, a judge in Houston ruled that Free Speech Systems, the parent company of InfoWars, could be liquidated and put up for auction to help pay the judgment.
Semafor reported on Sunday that a handful of liberal and nonprofit organizations are exploring bidding on InfoWars, including the left-leaning group, Media Matters.
“We are diligently considering this acquisition,” Media Matters president Angelo Carusone told the outlet. Carusone added that the organization would consider examining InfoWars archives to see what the outlet has not published.
Jones recently 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.
In recent days, Jones publicly implored X boss Elon Musk to buy InfoWars, Semafor said, adding that one of the billionaire’s first acts as Twitter owner was to revoke the site’s ban on Jones’ account.
An unnamed source told the publication that they expect Jones to find an outside funder who will outbid the competition, take control of the site at auction, and install Jones as head of the property.
This might not be surprising to Jones’ victims, Semafor reported, adding that one of the lawsuits included allowing Jones to keep InfoWars as a way to generate money to pay off the massive damages he owes.
The publication also reported that there are a few other left-leaning groups that are tinkering with the idea of bidding on Infowars ahead of the November auction.
Jeff Rotkoff, the CEO of the new Texas-focused digital publication The Barbed Wire, told the publication that although he isn’t currently in a position to buy the Austin-based company outright, he is in talks with people in his network to partner with his site to bid as a group.
“We started The Barbed Wire in part to disrupt the constant stream of conspiracies and disinformation from people like Alex Jones and Joe Rogan, and it would be a step towards justice to use the InfoWars brand to undo some of the damage they’ve caused,” Rotkoff said.
An unnamed third executive at a left-leaning media company said they’d looked into bidding this week, and an adviser to several progressive nonprofit news organizations said they are speaking with big donors about placing a bid or launching a crowdfunding campaign.
Semafor also reported that others on the left have been buzzing about the bidding process.
In a post on X earlier this week, Brian Krassenstein, who along with his twin brother became famous for his viral anti-Trump tweets, said that he would “call it MissInfoWars and rehire Alex Jones, but make him dress up as ‘Alexa Jones’ and tell fairy tales.”
Although the post was positioned more as a joke, Krassenstein said he did have interesting in bidding on the site.
“We are actually considering bidding but I can’t imagine actually winning it as I’m sure it will surpass our budget,” he said. “Maybe we will get lucky.”
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.
