Infowars radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones will have his personal assets liquidated to help pay a massive $1.5 billion debt he owes for making false claims about the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting. But his Infowars empire will be spared, after a Texas bankruptcy judge rejected a proposed liquidation of Jones’s company, Free Speech Systems.
“I was never asked today to make a decision to shut down a show or not,” Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez said in his ruling. “It was never going to happen, that being said, this is one of the most difficult cases I’ve had.”
He said dismissing the Texas-based media company’s bankruptcy case was in the best interest of creditors and the estate. The families involved in the case were torn, with those who filed in Texas advocating for a dismissal of the company’s bankruptcy case, while families who filed in Connecticut wanted Jones’s empire shut down.
“Dismissal allows the creditors to exercise available remedies in state court immediately—not after waiting for a new protracted bankruptcy under chapter 7 to play out,” some of the families argued in a court filing.
Still, the decision effectively allows Infowars to remain on-air for now, though its future is uncertain.
In court on Friday, Lopez approved converting Jones’ bankruptcy to a liquidation, according to the Associated Press. While Jones has initially filed for bankruptcy protection to reorganize, he recently requested permission to liquidate his assets instead.
Jones personal assets are valued at about $9 million, while his company has about $4 million in cash on hand, according to the AP. He has already begun the process of selling his $2.8 million Texas ranch, a gun collection, and other assets, the AP reported.
In court documents, lawyers for the Sandy Hook victims’ families have accused Jones of engaging in “apparent financial gymnastics” and a “Hail Mary attempt” to funnel money from his creditors to himself and his parents.
The families are also calling for Jones’ X account to be included in the bankruptcy. Jones has 2.3 million followers on X, formerly Twitter.
In a video rant filmed while he was driving to court on Friday morning, Jones said that taking away his X account is “totally ridiculous” and would violate the social-media site’s terms of service. “It is personal, and you can’t take it away from somebody in a lawsuit,” he said.
Jones faces the massive judgement for falsely claiming that the shooting and killing of 20 young children and six adults at an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut was a hoax staged by crisis actors to gin up opposition to gun rights. Family members said they were subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones’ followers, some of whom claimed that the kids who were killed never existed.
“Every single one of these families were drowning in grief, and Alex Jones put his foot right on top of them,” Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the families, said in 2022.
Jones has since acknowledged that the massacre occurred, though he now claims that the families are pawns in a globalist plan to silence him. During his Friday morning video, he claimed that the federal government “uses the Sandy Hook people as front people.”
“I didn’t kill those kids, ladies and gentlemen,” he said of the Sandy Hook victims. “I barely ever talked about them. I covered the internet questioning the shooting.”
He claimed that desperate globalists are trying to silence him because they are “planning something big” ahead of the 2024 election, mentioning civil unrest, World War III, “total economic collapse,” and even a possible assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
“This is all war-gamed, all planned,” he said. “They don’t want me on the air during this, because I’ve got their number.”
Speaking to the media on Friday, Jones said he’s a victim of “lawfare and the weaponization of the legal system.” While Judge Lopez has been “fair,” he said, lawyers for the Sandy Hook families are using the bankruptcy process to “torture me and harass me.”
“This is probably the end of Infowars here, very, very, soon — if not today, the next few weeks or months,” Jones said. “But it’s just the beginning of my fight against tyranny.”
If Jones loses ownership of his companies, it’s possible they could be purchased by supporters. According to the AP, Jones’ company, Free Speech Systems, has 44 employees and made nearly $3.2 million in April selling various items.
In addition to his broadcast, Jones uses his Infowars website to hawk books, clothes, survival gear, and supplements, such as fish oil, concentrated beet extract, “1776 Testosterone Boost,” and “Brain Force Ultra” — described as “your daily energy supercharge.”