• The Onion’s bid for Infowars came along with the help of the Sandy Hook families.
• The deal is now on hold after a bankruptcy judge raised concerns about the auction.
• Onion CEO Ben Collins has said he wants to turn InfoWars into an “alt-media” parody hub.

On the surface, The Onion’s announcement that it has bought Alex Jones’ Infowars at Thursday’s auction may sound like a bizarre joke.

But behind the scenes, the bid came together through strategic coordination — with support from Sandy Hook families and a nonprofit backed by Michael Bloomberg.

Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion, Yahoo said that he knew some of the lawyers representing the Sandy Hook families from his former days as a disinformation reporter at NBC. He said they were the key to the deal.

“Families decided they were actually going to join our bid,” Collins told Yahoo, “to try to get across the finish line because at the end of the day, it was us or Alex Jones.”

However, the purchase is apparently not set in stone, if Jones – who was hoping one of his allies would buy the site – has anything to say about it.

The designated backup bidder, First United American Companies — which operates Jones’ online supplement store — requested a hearing in Texas bankruptcy court to “address apparent flaws in the sale process, including changing procedures, lack of transparency and disclosures inaccurate to interested bidders. ,” according to a court filing.

In a hearing Thursday, Judge Christopher Lopez of the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas expressed concern that the bids were not split between rival bidders, Bloomberg News reported. Another hearing is set for next week.

“No one should be comfortable with the results of the auction,” Lopez said.

The Onion, an attorney for First United and attorneys for the trustee in charge of liquidating Jones’ assets did not respond to Business Insider’s requests for comment.

“The sale is currently pending pending standard processes,” Collins said Variety Friday in a statement.

In addition to supporting Sandy Hook families, The Onion is also partnering with Everytown for Gun Safety—a non-profit anti-gun violence organization founded in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre. Everytown, which is supported by backed by billionaire Michael Bloombergsupports Infowars reimagined as a multi-year advertising business.

“They’ve loved The Onion for a long time,” Collins told Yahoo, nodding a title the press publishes verbatim every time there is a mass shooting.

And while many might consider The Onion, Everytown and Infowars to be “odd bedfellows,” Everytown president John Feinblatt told ABC News that there’s actually a “perfect synergy” given how The Onion has advocated against gun violence over the years, citing his unique ability to “reduce misinformation” using humor.

Collins told ABC News that The Onion will own everything from Jones’ broadcast equipment to his supplement business.

In terms of content, a new website would exist separately from The Onion. “We’re going to start building a whole new world out there,” Collins told ABC News, adding that he would parody “the alt-media people who have been left untethered for too long.”

Neither Everytown nor Bloomberg Philanthropies immediately responded to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Variety also reported that at Thursday’s hearing, lawyers for Elon Musk’s X appeared to reserve ownership of Jones’ personal X account.

X’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

auction is ongoing because Jones was ordered to pay the Sandy Hook families a collective $1.5 billion after losing a defamation lawsuit for repeatedly referring to the deadly school shooting as a hoax.

Jones and Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy in 2022 and its assets are being liquidated.