‘Jump ball’ for Alex Jones’ media empire as it goes up for auction today

Alex Jones could lose his media company Infowars if it goes to auction today.

Live bidding is taking place behind closed doors on everything from Jones’ desk, microphones and online vitamin supplement store to his “extensive office fitness equipment” and “Terradyne armored truck.”

Proceeds will go to 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, families expect to raise only a small portion of that amount.

The future owner of Jones’ media empire will become public once the court papers are filed. All bidders at the auction have signed confidentiality agreements and the winning bid will ultimately be selected by the court-appointed trustee in Jones’ bankruptcy case.

Jones has told viewers that Infowars and its parent company, Free Speech Systems, may be shut down today depending on whether “a hostile buyer gets it at auction” or “whether the good guys can win the auction.” .”

But later, on X.com, he was defiant, insisting that he will not be silenced no matter what.

“All you leftists celebrating the end of Alex Jones and Infowars, you are fools,” Jones said. “I have offers all over the country, huge networks. We have sponsors in the studios (…) All I get is love and our audience is exploding. So just look. Look what already happened when they got Tucker (Carlson) took from Fox (News), it’s grown ten times bigger. My God, I can’t imagine how it’s going to blow up in your face.”

According to various accounts, some of Jones’ friends as well as his enemies are participating in the bidding.

Republican operative and Trump confidante Roger Stone was among those who talked about assembling a conservative group of bidders. He declined to comment on the outcome of these efforts, but he echoed Jones’ sentiments about continuing to exercise his right to free speech.

“I don’t know what will happen in the Infowars bankruptcy proceedings,” Stone said, “but I do know that Alex Jones will eventually rise like a Phoenix from the ashes and eventually reach a national audience.”

At least a few left-leaning bidders say they backed out after learning that much higher bids were already in the mix.

Jeff Rotkoff, who runs a progressive media company in Texas called The Barbed Wire, has withdrawn after it became clear that multiple bids from left-wing parties are already “in the six- and seven-figure range.”

“We talked to a lot of people who shared our goals and had a lot more money, and it was very clear that we weren’t going to be able to make a winning bid,” Rotkoff said. “So instead, we stand with anyone who wants to undo the damage Alex Jones has done to our state, our country and our planet.”

Rotkoff says he’s cautiously optimistic, but adds, “There are also billionaires on the other side” who want to help Jones retain his audience, “so it sounds like a bouncy ball to me.”

The person who wins the auction does not necessarily have to be the highest bidder. The American trustee has broad discretion to ‘determine the highest’ or otherwise the best bid or bids” (emphasis added) according to auction firms Tranzon Asset Advisors and ThreeSixty Asset Advisors.

Regardless of whether Jones is successful in getting hired to work for his company’s new owners or moves elsewhere, the Sandy Hook families will continue to have a claim on his future earnings. The bankruptcy judge has ruled that because Jones’ conduct was intentional and malicious, he will not get the clean slate that bankruptcy usually provides. This means the families can continue to pursue him until he pays the full $1.5 billion he owes them.

“They have a hunting license to go after any assets or income he has, regardless of the source,” said Bruce Markell, a former U.S. bankruptcy judge and now a professor at Northwestern School of Law.

Attorneys for the Sandy Hook families did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, Jones is appealing the rulings against him in Connecticut and Texas, and this week he again denied that he had defamed the Sandy Hook families, despite repeatedly saying on his show that they were just actors, who ” fake crying’ and ‘playing different roles’. from different people,” and suggested it was all just an elaborate plot designed to drum up support for gun control.

“I’ve hardly ever talked about that story,” Jones said Monday on X, ranting about what he called “those bogus lawsuits.”

As he has done many times in his career, Jones also repeated baseless conspiratorial claims that “the Democratic Party is running the whole thing. The FBI doesn’t understand that they made the whole thing up with the CIA.”