Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' property went up for auction Wednesday.
The Austin-based founder of Infowars was ordered to pay $1.5 billion in restitution for defaming families of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Jones regularly accused them of being crisis actors on his broadcasts. Jones declared bankruptcy in 2022.
The online-only auction was intended to liquidate Jones' assets related to Infowars and its parent company, Free Speech Systems. Wednesday's auction was not open to the public. Bidders were required to sign a nondisclosure agreement and submit bids late last week.
Jones said the auction ended early Wednesday afternoon and he wasn't sure who bought the rights to Infowars. The sale must be approved by a federal monitor. He vowed to continue broadcasting in some form if the show he started 30 years ago gets shut down.
"This building and this equipment is not Infowars. The website, Infowars.com, is not the Infowar. I am the Infowar," he said. "Our audience of activists and men and women who are in the arena who know this is not a spectator sport are Infowars.”
Jones railed against the auction on his show earlier in the week, saying the legal proceedings against him were "show trials." He said auctioneers had been on site Monday to ensure his inventoried assets were accounted for ahead of the auction.
"I saw the auctioneers inside the building, going around surveying from the last time they were here to make sure all the stuff's here — everything tagged, everything marked — [even] this desk," he said Monday.
The assets at auction include media-related items like his studio space, desk and recording equipment, but also intellectual property like the Infowars online store, social media handles and the rights to his books, as well as a 2023 video game "NWO Wars" (which received mixed reviews).
Items that weren't sold Wednesday will be sold at another auction Dec. 10. Potential pieces up for that auction include an armored Infowars-branded truck Jones regularly drives around Austin, production equipment, office furniture, gym equipment and a Winnebago. Prospective buyers can make a bids on those items starting Dec. 2.
If not enough money is raised to cover the restitution, the federal bankruptcy court could also order his personal assets to be liquidated. Court-ordered inventory earlier this year shed some light on those personal assets, including six Central Texas properties, more than $100,000 in firearms, a $3,000 cryotherapy chamber and a $200 rag doll cat.
As NPR notes, Jones' allies and enemies have both expressed interest in harvesting what they can from his one-time media empire. Former Trump adviser and self-described "dirty trickster" Roger Stone has said he'd back a play to buy up Jones' assets and allow Infowars to continue, while the publisher of the Austin-based, progressive-leaning outlet The Barbed Wire pitched a plan to buy it outright and "tell Alex Jones to eat s––t."
