After years of court battles with the families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, a possible legal resolution has emerged for Austin-based conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Jones repeated the claim that the mass shooting was faked as part of a plot to infringe on the rights of Americans. As a consequence, two separate juries have collectively awarded the families nearly $1.5 billion in damages.
Last week, Jones agreed in a Houston court to reclassify his bankruptcy filing in a way that will require him to sell off assets to pay a portion of the debt. This includes InfoWars, the show and brand that served as Jones’s primary platform for years.
Dan Solomon, contributing writer for Texas Monthly, said Jones’ bankruptcy case means he is required to liquidate his assets.
“That’s the intellectual property of InfoWars, it’s probably also the physical asset — that would be the supplements that he’s been selling,” Solomon said. “Perhaps even things like he’s got an armored car that he drives around Austin and other places when he’s doing events. All of that could be and probably will be part of the sale.”
Solomon said there are several options for what could happen to InfoWars going forward.
“Nobody has put in a public offer or anything. And the sale isn’t controlled by Jones – that’s important to note. It’s controlled by a trustee from the court. But in terms of who would be interested, you can imagine a world where someone who really loves InfoWars and wants to keep it on the air would buy it to keep Jones on,” Solomon said.
“Although that’s risky, because he did just get sued for $1.5 billion and whoever bought InfoWars, should he do that again, would be a party to the next lawsuit.”
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Solomon said it’s also possible somebody buys the brand and tries to keep it going without Jones at the helm.
“Although I don’t know if Infowars is a viable brand without Alex Jones,” he said. “The two are so inextricably linked, that I don’t know how you separate them.”
Another option? Someone could buy the brand to get into the supplement business.
“InfoWars supplements have sold very well. So someone who wants to try and take advantage of the brand recognition that InfoWars has as a supplement business could choose to do that. That doesn’t seem too far fetched to me,” Solomon said.
“And then kind of the fourth option would be someone who wants to buy InfoWars because they want it almost as a trophy or because they’re angry about what Alex Jones did with it. And they’d like to use it as something that they would feel good about.”
As for Jones, Solomon said there is nothing stopping him from launching another media company.
“He would still be severely in debt to these families that he defamed. So most of the revenue that that business generated would end up being paid to the families,” Solomon said.
“He could start a new business tomorrow and get back on the air with a different brand and buy a new microphone and a new camera and get started again. But it’s not going to have the reach that InfoWars did. I mean, brand recognition is valuable for a reason. We’re going to find out how vulnerable it is when it comes to a sale.”
