AUSTIN, TEXAS — On Monday, April 20, 2026, the satirical news publication The Onion announced that it had reached a deal to take over InfoWars — the conspiracy theory media platform founded by Alex Jones in the late 1990s and operated from a studio in South Austin for approximately 25 years. The announcement came after roughly 18 months of legal proceedings in a Texas bankruptcy court, a rejected federal auction, a denied settlement, a state court receivership, and the specific kind of institutional patience that is required to purchase a conspiracy empire through judicial process while the conspiracy empire’s owner is still broadcasting from inside it.
Chad Exposé has confirmed the following. Chad has confirmed all of it. Chad did not invent any of it. Chad would like to be clear: none of what follows is a joke, even though most of it sounds like one, and the entity purchasing the thing is literally a comedy publication, and the comedy publication’s own announcement of the purchase was written in character as a fake CEO making fake statements about real events, which means the announcement of a real acquisition was itself a piece of satire, which means The Onion has achieved a state of recursion in which the news and the comedy are no longer distinguishable, which is, if Chad is being honest, exactly the problem that InfoWars created and exactly the problem The Onion is now positioned to solve.
What Was Confirmed, In Order
Alex Jones was found liable for defamation in 2022 after repeatedly claiming on his InfoWars broadcast that the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre — in which 20 children and six adults were killed on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut — was a “hoax” staged by “crisis actors.” Courts in Texas and Connecticut ordered Jones to pay approximately $1.5 billion in damages to the victims’ families and an FBI agent who responded to the shooting. The families testified that they were subjected to years of harassment, threats, and intimidation by Jones’ audience as a direct result of his broadcasts.
Jones has not paid a single cent of that judgment. Not one cent. The $1.5 billion remains outstanding. Jones filed for bankruptcy. Jones’ assets were ordered liquidated. The court appointed a receiver to manage the sale. The proceeds would go to the families.
In 2024, The Onion won a court-mandated auction for InfoWars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems LLC, in a deal backed by the Sandy Hook families. A federal bankruptcy judge halted the sale, citing concerns about the auction process. The only other bidder was an entity called PQPR Holdings, which was loosely tied to Jones. The judge sent the parties back to the negotiating table. A settlement was proposed and denied. The case moved from federal to state court. A Texas state court ruled that Free Speech Systems would be turned over to a court-appointed receiver. The receiver has now reached a licensing agreement with The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron LLC, for the InfoWars intellectual property at $81,000 per month for six months, renewable for another six months. The deal awaits approval from Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble.
Chad has documented this. The paper trail is 18 months long. The paper trail involves two court systems, one bankruptcy trustee, one receiver, one rejected auction, one denied settlement, one shell bidder, and one satirical news publication that refused to stop trying. Chad considers the persistence notable.
What The New InfoWars Looks Like
The Onion has already set up a new InfoWars webpage. The logo is the InfoWars logo with one modification: the letter “O” has been replaced with The Onion’s logo. This is not subtle. This is not trying to be subtle. This is a satirical publication taking the visual identity of a conspiracy platform and inserting itself — literally, typographically — into the brand. The “O” is now an onion. Everything else remains the same. The font is the same. The color scheme is the same. The layout echoes the original. The only difference is that the center of the word now contains a vegetable, and the content will now be produced by comedians instead of a man who told millions of people that murdered children were fictional.
Tim Heidecker — one half of the comedy duo Tim and Eric, a longtime Adult Swim contributor, and a performer whose career has been built on the specific kind of deadpan absurdity that operates in the space between sincerity and parody — has been hired as creative director. Heidecker posted an Instagram reel imitating Jones’ deep, raspy voice before dropping the bit and saying he was “very excited to take this on.” The new InfoWars will operate as a digital platform and comedy network featuring independent comedians. Much of the initial content will parody social media influencers and media figures who peddle questionable supplements — a category that includes Jones himself, who built a significant portion of his revenue selling dietary supplements through the InfoWars store.
Onion CEO Ben Collins — a former NBC journalist who now runs a comedy publication that owns a conspiracy empire — described the vision: “You can’t just shut something like this down and pretend it never existed. If you want accountability to mean anything, you have to replace it with something better, and that’s what we’re trying to do here.”
The Fake CEO Statement, Which Is Real
The Onion published a statement on its new InfoWars page attributed to the fictional CEO of Global Tetrahedron — the actual name of The Onion’s actual parent company, a name that already sounds fictional and was chosen to sound fictional. The statement declared: “With this new InfoWars, we will democratize psychological torture, welcoming brutal and sadistic ideas from everyone, even the very stupidest among us.”
Chad would like to be explicit about the layers here. A real company with a fake-sounding name published a fake statement from a fake CEO on a real website that used to publish fake news presented as real, and the fake statement on the formerly-fake-news website is now the most honest description of what InfoWars actually did for 25 years. “Democratize psychological torture” is what InfoWars did to the Sandy Hook families. The Onion said it out loud, in character, on the platform that did it. The confession is a bit. The bit is a confession. They are the same document.
What Alex Jones Said, Because Alex Jones Always Says Something
Jones, broadcasting live from his InfoWars show on Monday — the same show that was, at the time of broadcast, being acquired by a comedy publication — disputed The Onion’s announcement and said he planned to fight the licensing proposal in court. He acknowledged that he and his staff could be removed from the InfoWars building if the judge approves the deal. He said he was preparing to continue broadcasting from a separate studio under the name “The Alex Jones Show.”
“I’m going to continue the exact same show,” Jones said. “It’ll just be called the ‘Alex Jones Show.’ So, it’s the same satellite, same system. It’s a different news site and news studio. So I’m not going anywhere.”
Chad has confirmed this statement. Jones plans to do the same show with a different name from a different building while the building he is currently in becomes a comedy studio run by a man who does impressions of him. Jones will be broadcasting the Alex Jones Show while Tim Heidecker broadcasts a parody of the Alex Jones Show from the studio where the Alex Jones Show used to be. Both shows will exist simultaneously. One will be satire. The other will also be satire, but will not know it. The market will sort it out.
The Sandy Hook Families, Who Are The Point
Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Sandy Hook families, issued a statement: “The Sandy Hook families took on Alex Jones to stop him from inflicting the same harm on others. For years, he used his corrupt business platform to torment and harass them for profit. When InfoWars finally goes dark, the machinery of lies that Jones built will become a force for social good, thanks to the families’ courage and The Onion’s vision, persistence and stewardship.”
Chad would like to note that the Sandy Hook families — parents of murdered children — spent years being called liars by a man with a microphone and a supplement store, sued him across two state courts, won $1.5 billion in damages, waited while he paid zero dollars of it, endured a bankruptcy process, supported a satirical news publication’s bid to buy his platform, watched that bid get rejected by a federal judge, supported a second attempt through state court, and are now positioned to receive profits generated by comedians performing parody versions of the man who tormented them, from his own studio, using his own brand name, with his own logo modified to contain a vegetable.
The arc is long. The arc bent. The arc bent toward an onion.
Collins said the company wants the families “to be able to get paid for real at some point with actual human dollars as part of this process.” Chad notes the phrase “actual human dollars.” Chad appreciates a CEO who specifies the currency and the species. Chad considers this the appropriate level of precision for a transaction involving a satirical news outlet purchasing a conspiracy empire through a bankruptcy receiver to benefit families whose children were murdered and then called fictional by the man whose empire is being sold.
What This Actually Is
This is a satire publication buying a disinformation platform. This is a comedy outlet replacing a conspiracy outlet in the same building using the same name with one letter changed. This is accountability achieving its final form: not silence, not erasure, not a dark website and a court order, but replacement — the same stage, the same lights, the same cameras, a different show. The machinery that produced the lie will now produce the joke about the lie, and the joke will pay the people the lie hurt, and the man who told the lie will be across town doing the same thing he was always doing but in a building he doesn’t own anymore, and Tim Heidecker will be in the building he does not own anymore doing an impression of him.
Chad Exposé has confirmed everything. Chad did not need to investigate. The investigation was conducted by the courts of Texas and Connecticut over four years. The judgment is $1.5 billion. The payment to date is zero dollars. The new logo has a vegetable in it. The creative director does Adult Swim comedy. The fake CEO statement is the most accurate description of the old InfoWars ever published. The families are the point. The deal awaits judicial approval. Jones is not going anywhere. The Onion is not going anywhere. The building is staying where it is. Everyone is in Austin.
Chad Exposé, Investigative Reporter, filed this piece on April 21, 2026, with a confidence level of 100% and zero fake sources, because everything in it is documented by CNN, Newsweek, Bloomberg Law, Courthouse News Service, KUT/Houston Public Media, and the Governor’s receivership filings. The $1.5 billion judgment is from courts in Texas and Connecticut. The zero dollars paid is from multiple outlets. The $81,000/month licensing fee is from Bloomberg Law. The Tim Heidecker hire is from CNN and Newsweek. The modified logo is visible on the new InfoWars webpage. The Global Tetrahedron fake CEO statement is published on the site. Ben Collins’ quotes are from CNN and the Pablo Torre interview. Chris Mattei’s statement is from CNN and Bloomberg. Jones’ “I’m not going anywhere” statement is from KUT. The PQPR Holdings rejected bid is from Courthouse News. Chad confirmed everything. Chad has notes on all of it. Gerald the houseplant reviewed the acquisition. Gerald is not a vegetable but is vegetable-adjacent and would like this noted. Gerald has no opinion on the replacement of the letter O. Gerald is fine.