Summary
A federal judge has delayed approving the sale of Alex Jones’ media company, Infowars, to The Onion, amid disputes over the auction process.
The Onion won with a $1.75 million bid supported by Sandy Hook families, who agreed to forego their share of sale proceeds for future revenue from a revamped Infowars, enabling other creditors to collect more.
However, a competing bidder backed by Jones, First United American Companies, contested the sale, claiming its $3.5 million bid was unfairly rejected.
The judge plans an evidentiary hearing to ensure transparency.
More of that “free market” Republicans and Neoliberals love crowing about on display.
Can’t have commerce happening for prosocial reasons, only greed!
Can’t have commerce happening for prosocial reasons, only greed!
i mean, if Jones is in bankruptcy the whole point is to pay his debts to who he owes, some of which i believe are the parkland families. so you want to sell it for the largest total amount in order to pay off as much debt as possible.
if a company really did offer $3.5m and was rejected meanwhile The Onion is getting accepted for $1.75m, I’d like to know why. I don’t think a company should get free dibs just because they’re more or less “ethical” than another. at the end of the day, they’re a for-profit corporation that is going to use this as a way to make money.
i don’t believe for one second this has anything to do with “prosociality”
The major reason is that the Parkland families agreed to take a smaller payout as part of the Onion deal. Therefore, it enables more of the creditors to actually get paid (as opposed to the other deal, where the Parkland families would get almost all the money and the rest of the creditors would be left hat-in-hand).
Thanks for the info. If the creditors agree to take a lowered payout, than it makes sense. I wasn’t aware of any such deal before making my comment.
I don’t want to dox myself but I know Parkland very well. The people who live there are loaded. So it makes sense they aren’t hurting for money and would just prefer the Infowars website to be neutered, which it seems is the Onion’s goal.
Also the onion deal pays out a percentage revenues to the creditors over a set amount of time (I forget exactly how long), where as the other deal is one and done. So POTENTIALLY the earning potential is much higher with the onion deal, but I think the point of the onion deal was to bury infowars.
Detailed answer: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GmDNz7irGgw
TLDW: there’s two main parties (excluding lawyers and that kinda stuff) who would receive the money. As it stands right now, one of them would receive 98%, whereas the other would be left with barely anything. The Onion made a deal, that would cut into that 98%, and give the other party 100000 dollars more than what they would get with any other bid if it was shared according to the “proper” split. In return the 98% party gets paid out the rest of their due (potentially more, potentially less) with revenue from running the site.
I watched the video when it came out. If memory serves me correctly, the 98% party are parents from North Carolina, the others are from Texas. The percentage I wrote is probably wrong too. But it’s definitely a massive discrepancy. The Onion worked this deal out in collaboration with both parties, and there’s definitely a prosocial aspect in the NC parents declining a large chunk od money so the other victims can get more. Though both the NC parents and The Onion could potentially earn back that amount by running the website.
I believe you got the percentages correct (I watched the video yesterday).
To everyone looking at the bidding numbers only – they don’t include a lot of concessions the NC parents gave to both the Texas parents and the Onion in order to keep AJ out of the deal.
The video goes into great detail about how the deal came to be, and how the Onion and NC parents worked HARD to make it the most attractive one to both the trustee and Texas parents.
I think the video LegalEagle uploaded explains it quite succinctly: for the sale there was a certain split between the debtors, the debtors with the largest portion were willing to forego a portion such that the other debtors would get a larger portion if The Onion’s bid was the winning one. In effect, the other debtors would get more money out of the 1.75m than the 3.5m bid, and the debtors that ‘got less’ are the ones that offered the money in the first place.
My understanding is that the families are willing to forgive the debt to them if the onion is the purchaser. If you add the value of that to the bid, it far outweighs the 3.5 million.
As much as I wanted the onion to win, all I really care is that it in not going to go back to Jones.
the only other bidder in the Infowars auction — First United American Companies, which operates the ShopAlexJones.com website
Sounds like it’s The Onion, or back to Alex Jones.
He also declined to immediately rule on Jones’ request for a temporary restraining order to disqualify the Onion’s bid, and said “whatever was status quo pre-auction remains status quo” — essentially allowing Jones to remain broadcasting from his flagship platform, Infowars, for the time being.
“Firing folks a week before Thanksgiving is not what we do, but it sounds like that’s not what occurred,” Lopez said. “Folks are continuing to work.”
It sounds like the judge is a little too concerned not to cause discomfort to Alex Jones and his Infowars employees. It doesn’t sound promising for The Onion.
That doesn’t sound like he conceded to Jones though, since he rejected his request.
The auction not immediately changing anything is just how it goes, it’s not a concession to Jones. The onion won the auction, but the sale hasn’t completed. The judge letting them keep operating is both decent to the employees, and routine to not damage an asset while the sale is being handled.
Imagine it’s a grocery store rather that a shitty news outlet. You buy it for $1 million, but the judge made the previous owners lock the doors and keep workers from showing up. You now have a damaged asset filled with rotten fruit and melted ice cream that you wouldn’t have paid that much for.
Moreover, the trustee, amongst other powers granted, has a legal expectation to do what is best for whomever he is technically representing. Despite The Onion’s smaller monetary bid, they really did have the higher bid overall.
It’s fair that the judge says you can’t take control over an asset before he’s even ruled on whether you can take control over it. The opposite would be kinda silly.
Right? And the onion didn’t even ask to take control of it because the sale isn’t final.
Jones is just throwing a hissy fit about things that aren’t happening yet, and then when they don’t happen yet using that to publicly declare victory. When things actually do happen he’ll call it foul play by … Someone.
The trustee is on very solid ground. He had practically unilateral authority given to him. Guess we’ll see.
I have lost all faith in the American legal system. I expect Infowars to be broadcasting Jones’s filth well into the 2040s
Don’t worry; Alex Jones isn’t orange enough for the legal system to ignore.
He’s useful to the orange man… unfortunately that might be enough
I will not be surprised if this ends with Jones winning his counter suit against the families and bankrupting them. I have lost all faith in the USA.
The point is not (necessarily) to ruin Jones and the people who work for him but to pay the creditors.
In fact the court would have preferred NOT to ruin his company if possible. That was the point of chapter 11. But Jones seems hell bent on his own matrydom.
That was my point.
Or Leon.
You’d think if Jones pulled together 3.5 million to bid indirectly through a shell company for his own bankruptcy they’d just you know… take that money and give it to his creditors then continue with the sale since it’s still not enough…
Then he’s got the asset again so it can be auctioned off to get more proceeds to the families.
It’s an infinite money glitch.
That would be extremely funny.
You’d think
Musk will probably end up buying it, buying MSNBC and renaming that to InfowarsX
This made me nauseous only because I can actually see it happening.
This is Muskrat we are talking about. He would clearly call it Infosecs.
And, like twitter, promptly destroy the site.
Musk is shit at social media and I can’t see him and Jones getting along long enough to make this purchase profitable.
Then he needs to get to it and stop kissing ass
You can’t put too much water in a nuclear reactor
Chernobyl has entered the chat
