A bankruptcy court has rejected The Onion’s attempt to buy Alex Jones’s media platform Infowars, ruling Tuesday that the process lacked transparency.
The decision came late at night after two days of proceedings in a Houston courtroom, where Judge Christopher Lopez said, “I don’t think anyone acted in bad faith here.”
“I think everyone was trying to buy an asset and put their best foot forward and play by the rules,” Lopez said, but added that he was troubled over the sealed bidding process overseen by court-appointed trustee Christopher Murray.
The process “did not maximize value in any way, based on the record before me,” Lopez added. “I don’t think it was enough money.”
Jones celebrated the ruling, telling his followers on X, “A judge followed the law.” The conspiracy theorist had been relentlessly whining about the sale to anyone who would listen, including right-wing personalities like Steve Bannon, and even had the support of tech billionaire Elon Musk, who sought to protect Infowars’ account on the X platform.
Global Tetrahedron, which owns the satirical Onion, bought the conspiracy platform at a bankruptcy auction in November. Jones declared bankruptcy after losing a defamation lawsuit from the families of victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting, which his platform repeatedly suggested was staged in some way.
The Onion’s bid to purchase Infowars was backed by the families of eight Sandy Hook victims, who “agreed to forgo a portion of their recovery to increase the overall value of The Onion’s bid, enabling its success,” according to a statement last month. One day after the auction, though, Lopez paused the acquisition amid complaints from a losing bidder, First United American Companies, which is connected to Jones’s nutritional supplements business.
In a statement, The Onion’s CEO Ben Collins said it would continue to try and purchase Infowars.
“It is part of our larger mission to make a better, funnier internet, regardless of the outcome,” the statement said.
While many social media accounts belonging to Luigi Mangione, the man charged with murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, have been taken down since he was identified by police Monday, his X account remains online after a brief suspension.
Mangione’s X posts indicate engagement with center-right thought, self-improvement, and pop psychology and critiques of modern technology, consumption, and “wokeness.” Deleted posts from Mangione’s account reported by Business Insider Tuesday shed further light on the 26-year-old’s political views.
According to Business Insider, Mangione reshared a post in which Edward Snowden advocated for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be named the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee. “Darkly amusing to watch panicked dems suddenly searching under the couch cushions for a candidate when kennedy is literally standing right there,” Snowden posted in early July, as Biden faced increasing pressure to drop out amid concerns about his age and mental acuity.
Another post shows that Mangione viewed both Biden and Trump disapprovingly. “Both parties—Trump with his refusal to accept the results of an election, and Biden with his refusal to accept his age and step down—are simultaneously proving how desperately individuals will cling to power,” Mangione wrote in a reply to political writer and analyst Nate Silver, according to Business Insider.
Business Insider also uncovered that Mangione reposted a tweet from a self-described “fascist hipster,” which said: “My experience with the medical profession—and yours is probably similar—is that doctors are basically worthless unless you carefully manage them, and 2/3 of them are worthless even in that case.”
Mangione reportedly suffered from severe back pain and underwent back surgery. His manifesto, published by journalist Ken Klippenstein Tuesday afternoon, condemned companies that he said “abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has [allowed] them to get away with it.”
Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was discovered with a brutal manifesto in which he admitted to the crime and apologized for the “strife” he caused, but stated plainly that “these parasites simply had it coming.”
Mangione was arrested Monday at a McDonalds in Altoona, Pennsylvania, carrying a 3-D printed gun similar to that used in the killing, several fake IDs, and the following manifesto. While sections of the manifesto have already been published, it was published in full on Tuesday by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein.
“To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone,” Mangione wrote.
“This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there,” he wrote.
“I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done,” Mangione wrote. “Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.
“A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and........