A US judge on Friday approved the liquidation of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ personal assets, setting the stage for the repayment of nearly $1.5 billion in damages he owes families whose loved ones were killed in a school shooting.
The ruling by a bankruptcy court in Houston throws into doubt the future of Jones’s far-right website InfoWars — long notorious for peddling misinformation — which dangled the prospect of a “potential last broadcast” on Friday.
The serial provocateur had been ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion in damages for calling a 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in the state of Connecticut –- which left 20 first graders and six adults dead — a “hoax.”
But Jones subsequently declared personal bankruptcy in Texas, his home state, in 2022 saying his liabilities far exceeded his private assets that the latest court filings show are worth around $9 million. Free Speech Systems, the Texas-based parent company of InfoWars, also declared bankruptcy.
The judge on Friday allowed Jones to convert his personal bankruptcy case into a straightforward liquidation, according to legal documents, but was yet to rule on whether his company should also be liquidated.
The ruling means many of Jones’ personal assets — including a Texas ranch worth about $2.8 million — will be sold off to help pay the debts.
Some assets, such as his home in the Austin area, are exempt from bankruptcy liquidation, reports said.
Jones would lose control of Free Speech Systems if the court orders a liquidation of the company, paving the way for its assets to be sold off.
Jones has been warning his vast right-wing audience that his company is on the verge of being shut down.
“This is probably the end of Infowars here very, very soon,” Jones told reporters ahead of the ruling. “But it’s just the beginning of my fight against tyranny.”
On Friday, one headline on his website read: “This could be THE LAST broadcast of Infowars! DO NOT miss this!”
Misinformation profiteer
Jones, widely branded as a misinformation profiteer, appears to have amassed a fortune by successfully merging the conspiracy theories with merchandise and dietary supplements from his InfoWars store.
The site hawked male vitality supplements and testosterone boosters, while claiming the government was feminizing men or turning them gay by using chemical pollutants.
His audience, he claimed, can survive various doomsday scenarios with other products that his store can supply — storable food, body armor and even components for homemade guns.
In his latest posts on X, formerly Twitter, Jones urged his 2.3 million followers to support another website — Dr. Jones’ Naturals — which hawks similar products available on InfoWars.
The lucrative trade, misinformation experts say, highlights the financial incentive of content creators to push out conspiratorial material that has potential to go viral.
Experts say that showcases the challenge of curbing misinformation on the internet, where false and inflammatory content often spreads faster, generates more engagement — and more revenue -– than the truth.
US citizens and pro-democracy groups are now increasingly using defamation lawsuits as a tool to hold misinformation spreaders accountable.
There was no immediate reaction from the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting.
The families say they have been harassed and threatened for years by Jones’s fans, with strangers showing up at their homes to confront them and hurling abuse online.
Some even reported receiving rape and death threats.
