The quote below is also from the NYT article. The courts are forcing Alex Jones to sell assets. The way I understand it is that the Sandy Hook families wanted The Onion to buy InfoWars because they didn’t want another right wing outlet to buy InfoWars and then continue doing the same type of harassment. The company associated with Alex Jones bid higher and then Alex Jones said it was not fair for the families to pick The Onion.

The licensing agreement seems like some kind of compromise. The Onion gets access to the domain for 6 months for $486k and Alex Jones still owes over $1 billion to the Sandy Hook families.

In late 2024, a sealed-bid silent auction drew only two contenders: The Onion’s parent and a company associated with Mr. Jones. The trustee and the families chose The Onion’s bid, despite its potential to yield less cash than the rival company’s. Mr. Jones and his lawyers cried foul, and Judge Lopez intervened, saying that the process was opaque and that The Onion’s bid was not obviously superior. He rejected plans for a do-over of the auction, instead directing the families to seek a liquidation through Judge Guerra Gamble’s court in Texas, where the first defamation case was heard and won.

In August, Judge Guerra Gamble ruled that a court-appointed administrator would take over and sell Infowars’ assets, reopening the door to The Onion. “We’re working on it,” Ben Collins, the chief executive of Global Tetrahedron, wrote on social media on the same day as Judge Guerra Gamble’s ruling.

The Onion’s proposal, worth $486,000 in its initial six-month term, does little to satisfy the enormous damages awarded to the Sandy Hook families. The families have been fighting to collect since Mr. Jones filed for personal and business bankruptcy. Mr. Jones is expected to lose access to his studio and equipment as part of the deal, Mr. Collins said.