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'Jump ball' for Alex Jones' media empire as it hits the auction block today
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Alex Jones could lose his Infowars media company when it goes up for auction today.
Live bidding is happening behind closed doors for everything from Jones' desk, microphones and online vitamin supplements store to his "extensive in-office fitness equipment" and "Terradyne armored truck."
The proceeds will go to pay Sandy Hook families who won defamation cases against Jones after he spread false conspiracy theories that the 2012 school shooting never happened. Jones owes the families some $1.5 billion in damages for the pain and suffering they endured after some of his followers harassed and threatened them for years. At best, the families expect to collect just a tiny slice of that amount.
The future owner of Jones' media empire will become public once court papers are filed. All bidders in the auction have signed nondisclosure agreements, and the winning bid ultimately will be selected by the court-appointed trustee in Jones bankruptcy case.
Jones has been telling his viewers that Infowars and its parent company, Free Speech Systems, may be shut down as soon as today, depending on whether "a hostile buyer gets it at auction" or "if the good guys are able to win the auction."
But later, on X.com, he was defiant, insisting that either way, he will not be silenced.
"All you lefties celebrating the end of Alex Jones and Infowars, you're fools," Jones said. "I've got offers all over the country, huge networks. We've got sponsors back at studios […] All I get is love and our audiences exploded. So just watch. Watch what already happened when they took Tucker [Carlson] off of Fox [News], he got ten times bigger. My God, I can't imagine how it's going to blow up in your face."
By several accounts, some of Jones' friends as well as his foes are in the bidding.
Republican operative and Trump confidant Roger Stone was among those talking about putting together a conservative group of bidders. He declined to comment on the upshot of those efforts, but he echoed Jones' sentiments about continuing to exercise his right to free speech.
"I don't know what's going to happen in the bankruptcy proceedings regarding Infowars," Stone said, "but I do know that Alex Jones will ultimately rise like a Phoenix from the ashes and he'll end up with a national audience."
At least a couple of left-leaning bidders say they pulled out after learning that many higher bids were already in the mix.
Jeff Rotkoff, who runs a progressive media company in Texas called "The Barbed Wire," opted out after it became clear that multiple bids from left-leaning parties are already "in the six- and seven-figure range."
"We talked to a lot of folks who shared our goals and had a heck of a lot more money, and it was very clear we were not going to be able to put together a winning bid," Rotkoff said. "So instead, we're rooting for anybody who wants to undo the harm that Alex Jones has done to our state, our country and our planet."
Rotkoff says he's cautiously optimistic but adds, "There are billionaires on the other side as well" who want to help Jones maintain his audience, "so it sounds to me like a jump ball."
Whoever wins the auction might not necessarily be the highest bidder. The U.S. trustee has broad discretion to "determine the highest or otherwise best bid or bids" [emphasis added] according to the auction firms Tranzon Asset Advisors and ThreeSixty Asset Advisors.
Regardless of whether Jones manages to get hired to work for new owners of his company or whether he goes to work elsewhere, the Sandy Hook families will continue to have a claim on his future earnings. The bankruptcy judge has ruled that because Jones' behavior was intentional and malicious, he will not get the clean slate that bankruptcy usually provides. This means the families can keep chasing him until he has paid the full $1.5 billion he owes them.
"They have a hunting license to go after any asset or any income that he has, regardless of source," says Bruce Markell, a former U.S. bankruptcy judge and now Northwestern School of Law Professor.
Attorneys for the Sandy Hook families did not respond to requests for comment.
Meantime, Jones is appealing the rulings against him in Connecticut and Texas, and just this week, he again denied defaming the Sandy Hook families, despite having repeatedly said on his show that they were just actors, "fake crying" and "playing different parts of different people," and suggesting it was all just an elaborate plot meant to drum up support for gun control.
"I hardly ever even talked about that story," Jones said Monday on X, railing about what he called "those fake lawsuits."
As he has done many times in his career, Jones also repeated baseless conspiratorial claims that "the Democratic Party runs the whole thing. The FBI, they don't understand that they cooked the whole thing up with the CIA."
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