This time, The Onion is not joking.
The satirical website is targeting InfoWars, run by right wing media identity Alex Jones, so it can freely parody the misinformation it usually publishes.
An agreement has overnight been provisionally approved by a Texas court, whereby Global Tetrahedron, a Chicago-based company that owns The Onion, will lease InfoWars for $81,000 a month for six months.
Jones, a conspiracy theorist, wrongly claimed that the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, where more than 20 children were killed, was a political hoax. After the extensive media backlash, Jones filed and lost a $1.4b defamation case against him in 2022, resulting in Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, declaring bankruptcy.
Lawyer Chris Mattei, who represents the Sandy Hook families, told the New York Times that the goal was to prevent Jones from doing further harm with misinformation, and The Onion deal promised “to significantly degrade his power to do that”.
Ben Collins, The Onion’s CEO, made the announcement on the X platform on Monday, and added that comedian Tim Heidecker will be Infowars’ creative director.
“With this new InfoWars, we will democratize psychological torture, welcoming brutal and sadistic ideas from everyone, even the very stupidest among us,” Collins wrote.
With the help of the Sandy Hook families, The Onion has reached a long-awaited deal to take over InfoWars.
We’ve enlisted the help of @timheidecker.bsky.social, who will be InfoWars’ Creative Director.
Please stand by for more.
— Tim Onion (@bencollins.bsky.social) 21 April 2026 at 03:04
The Onion leases InfoWars for six months
Maya Guerra Gamble, the Texas judge who presided over one of the lawsuits against the fake news site, and initially blocked The Onion’s first attempt to gain InfoWars, will first need to legally approve the deal.
The New York Times reports Gamble is likely to make a decision in the next two weeks. In that time, Jones can appeal the proposed agreement.
Heidecker told the NYT on Monday that he will mock Jones’s “whole modus operandi”, adding “I just thought it would be just a beautiful joke if we could take this pretty toxic, negative, destructive force of Infowars and rebrand it as this beautiful place for our creativity.”
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