The Onion, “America’s Finest News Source,” said it is planning a takeover of over right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars. Here’s what you need to know about it.
Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion – a satirical newspaper with roots in Madison, Wisc., dating back to 1988 – announced in a Monday post on the social media platform Bluesky that “The Onion has reached a long-awaited deal to take over Infowars,” with help from Sandy Hook families. He also said comedian Tim Heidecker would be joining the project as Infowars’ new creative director.
We’ve already mentioned The Onion’s roots. From its creation by two college students, the paper gained a following with headlines ranging from local “Area Man” stories to riffs on national and global news topics, as NPR noted in an article on the publication in 2013. There have even been The Onion books published, like “Our Dumb World”.
As of Tuesday, some of The Onion’s front page headlines include “Apple Backs Up Tim Cook’s Memories To Port Over Into Next CEO” and “Nation’s Dads Yearn For Chance To Back Large Vehicle Into Tight Spot.”
A group of digital media veterans called Global Tetrahedron (after a gag in The Onion) purchased the paper from G/O media in 2024, Deadline Reported. Collins, a former reporter for NBC News who often debunked conspiracy theories, was named CEO.
Soon after, The Onion started a plan to take over Infowars, according to a press release from the Everytown for Gun Safety organization. Per Britannica, Jones launched Infowars in 1999. It has been described as “a major force in introducing the American public to conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation,” said the encyclopedia.
Notably, families of the child victims who were murdered in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School successfully secured a $1.4 billion defamation verdict against Jones after he claimed the shooting, which claimed the lives of 20 6 and 7-year-old children and six adults, was a hoax. Following the verdict, Jones declared bankruptcy in 2022.
“I just didn’t want to make it so our most grievous sin as a country – which is our mass shootings of kids in school – where financializing that, and getting away with it, is fine,” said Collins in an interview with Pablo Torre about the motivation behind The Onion’s takeover of Infowars. “If we can’t draw a line there, then there is no line anymore. You can just do whatever you want, evil… whatever evil s*** you want, and make as much money as you want.”
In the interview with Torre, Collins noted that Jones furious when The Onion takeover plans were first reported in 2024, but that the Infowars host didn’t seem to know what the paper was. Collins noted that some reports cited The Onion’s satirical “about” section, which jokes that the paper began in 1756 and that it has a daily readership of 4.3 trillion.
“He had never heard of The Onion until it bought Infowars,” said Collins, who added, “the concept of it was completely foreign to him.”
Collins also noted that, in the months since the plan began, some had given up on the premise of The Onion taking over Infowars. However, he thinks the move is an important one.
Along with the typical Onion-style headlines on the front page Tuesday, there was also a letter from fictional Global Tetrahedron CEO Bryce P. Tetraeder.
“The Infowars of tomorrow will converge into a swirling vortex of content about content, talent acquiring talent, rings of concentric media mergers processing all human artistry into one endlessly digestible slurry,” it said, in part. “This will be a dank, sunless place, one where panic and capital feed on each other like twins in the womb of a hulking, unknowable monster – a monster known by many names, but which I like to call modern-day America.”
Collins explained in another Bluesky post that The Onion and its parent company plan to get control of Infowars after a judge clears the deal in “a couple of weeks” and that “we’ll build a world of characters on the site and across social media.” He also added that Heidecker “is in charge.”
Heidecker is known for his work with Eric Wareheim on the Adult Swim surreal sketch comedy show “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” as well as other projects such as “Ant-Man and the Wasp”. In a video address (starting off with an impersonation of Jones) he said he was honored to be taking on the new role at Infowars.
“We’re looking forward to re-launching the site soon, in the next coming months,” he said. “And, we’re not really sure what we’re going to do with it. We’re talking about all sorts of ideas. We were playing around with it being a real estate broker service or a cryptocurrency exchange market, a place to store pictures, almost like a Dropbox account. Not sure, a lot of ideas.”
Heidecker added that they are working with a company that will help you turn “your p***, urine, into gold,” in what seems to be a dig into Jones’ promotion of vitamins. On the Infowars site linked to The Onion, there are also various satirical advertisements. One reads “Learn to Float: Discover the Secret.”
As for Infowars stance, a post on its X account Tuesday said: “The Onion Is Fraudulently Claiming They Took Over Infowars AGAIN After Being Caught Trying To Pull Off Same Hoax In 2024! Tune In Now For The Truth!”
