Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars media platform and its assets will be sold off piece by piece in auctions this fall to help pay the more than $1 billion he owes relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, under an order expected to be approved by a federal judge.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston said during a court hearing Tuesday that he will approve the auctions that start in November. But he said he first must change a previous order to make it clear that the trustee overseeing Jones’ personal bankruptcy case controls all the assets of Infowars parent company Free Speech Systems, which is owned 100% by Jones.

Despite the pending loss of his company, Jones vows to continue his talk shows through other means, possibly including a new website and his personal social media accounts. He also has 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.

  • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Funny enough, there is a “Bill Hicks’ death was faked so he could come back as Alex Jones” conspiracy theory. Alex Jones denies it, but of course he would.

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        2 months ago

        Bill Hicks taking on a new identity where he makes his money from advertising. Could you imagine?

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        The weird part is that they are somehow connected. For some reason, Alex Jones accepted a posthumous award to Bill Hicks, which I think was the whole springboard for the conspiracy theory (which I mostly like because it’s funny to see it turned back on him). It doesn’t help his case that Alex Jones’ public persona is a character he does with a fake voice and all that.

        It was also more plausible before Jones took that hard turn to the right. He used to be more apolitical (in a “both parties are fake and corrupt” and “here’s a list of issues but I’m not going to offer any concrete solutions other than ‘stay tuned for more’” kind of way), so it was once more believable that he was an extreme version of Hicks.

        Though even back then, a part of the conspiracy theory was that he was compromised by the elites, so it wasn’t a “Bill Hicks is trying to save us as Alex Jones” but more of a, “they got to Bill Hicks and made him fake his death and come back as a liar who leads people who start to see the truth down some stupid lizard people or aliens path so they don’t hurt the status quo”.