Texas court pauses The Onion's proposed Infowars takeover

The Texas Third Court of Appeals late Wednesday approved conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s appeal to pause the satirical outlet The Onion from taking over Infowars.

The court stayed the turnover order after The Onion reached a deal for a takeover last week. The next hearing on the matter is set for May 28. The appeals court decision put a halt to a scheduled hearing Thursday on whether outlet’s deal would be approved by a state receiver.

The agreement would give The Onion temporary authority over Infowars and use its trademarks. Infowars faces liquidation from the state receiver as a result of more than $1 billion in defamation lawsuit judgments that Jones owes to relatives of victims killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in Connecticut in 2012.

He appealed the judgments to the Supreme Court, but it declined to take the case.

The conspiracy theorist claimed the shooting, in which 20 children under 10 years old and six school staff members were killed, of being a hoax.

Lawyers representing the Sandy Hook families asked the Texas Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court ruling; however, no decision was made ahead of the scheduled hearing.

The Onion CEO Ben Collins, ahead of the decision Wednesday, said he would keep fighting for the Sandy Hook families “who haven’t seen a penny from Alex Jones.”

“This newly insane, unprecedented legal stalling does nothing but delay our deal with the receiver to take control of InfoWars,” Collins wrote on Bluesky. “We now expect new traps in Alex Jones’ amoral war to deny paying the Sandy Hook families, but we’re freshly surprised by the U.S. legal system’s appetite to put up with it.”

The Onion has already sold Infowars merchandise spoofing Jones, releasing items like T-shirts and tote bags that feature the Infowars logo but with the trademark onion image as the “o” in the logo.

Jones has called The Onion’s plan illegal and said the deal will not pass.

During the site’s final show late Thursday, he said “they’re turning the power off at midnight.”

The host also used the last moments of the show to lambast The Onion and the costly lawsuits over his Sandy Hook claims.

“And they think, ‘Oh, we’ll take your money, Joe, and shut up,'” he said. “I’m ready to die for this. You think taking money from me does something? It makes me want to strangle you spiritually. It’s a joke. It, like, empowers me.”

Jones vowed to return with a new network and threatened to “sue your a‑‑ back.”

“We don’t just take lawsuits, we sue you and we win. And we have your whistleblowers, we have you,” he added. “You’ve walked into our trap, because we don’t start fights. We finish them.”

Jones and his crew toasted as the show came to its conclusion with Frank Sinatra’s “Blue Eyes” played in the background.

“God bless you all,” he said during the sign-off. “That’s it. The next phase starts. The real war begins now. It’s the nuclear age.”