Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is seeking to protect his personal social media accounts from being sold in the upcoming auction of his Infowars media platform to pay more than $1 billion he owes relatives of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, claiming selling those accounts would violate his privacy and deny him a chance to make a fresh start after bankruptcy.
The trustee overseeing the liquidation and selloff of the assets of Infowars and its parent company Free Speech Systems, asked a federal judge on Friday to include the social media accounts as part of the auctions scheduled for November and December. The judge delayed a decision on the matter for at least a week.
Jones' lawyers argue the personal media accounts that use his real name are not owned by Infowars or FSS, but are controlled by him personally, and should be considered part of his “persona” that cannot be owned by someone other than himself.
They argue that trustee Christopher Murray does not have a right to the social media accounts as property that can be sold, and warned that a purchaser could face lawsuits as to whether they were rightfully obtained.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston said a proposed order regarding the potential sale of the social media accounts that preserved Jones' right to sue over ownership later was unclear, and tentatively scheduled another hearing in a week.
“We should have great clarity and everybody agrees that something can be sold before it can be sold," Lopez said. “I want a purchaser or a bidder to know exactly what they think they can buy. I don't want to create litigation risk for a potential purchaser.”
The trustee is also seeking to be allowed to sell off the rights to royalties from Jones’ book “The Great Reset: And the War for the World” published in August 2022, and his video game “Alex Jones NWO Wars” released in 2023, that features Jones as the hero in a shooting game.
Despite the pending loss of his company, Jones has vowed to continue his talk shows through other means, possibly including a new website and his personal social media accounts. He also has suggested that Infowars’ assets could be bought by his supporters, allowing him to continue hosting his show as an employee under the Infowars brand in the company's home city of Austin, Texas.
In seeking the rights to the social media accounts, the legal team for the trustee argued in court filings that Jones’ X account, and others on Telegram, Gab, Parler and other platforms, “are frequently used to promote and post Infowars content, and in some cases, have a significant number of followers.” Jones' X account has nearly 3 million followers.
The trustee argued that social media accounts of influencers, celebrities and political personalities have become valuable assets, and that Jones' accounts have drawn particular interest from multiple parties in buying them.
If sold, Jones' attorneys said litigation would depend on who purchased them.
“We got comfortable with the trustee that if certain parties were the successful bidder, there would be litigation later, but if certain parties were the successful bidder, there wouldn’t be litigation later," Vickie Driver, one of Jones' attorneys, told the judge.
“There is value to some folks in buying these assets and using them in one way, and value to other folks to use them in another way," Driver said.
Jones and his company both filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022 — the same year Sandy Hook families won nearly $1.5 billion in defamation and emotional distress lawsuits against Jones for his repeatedly calling the 2012 school shooting a hoax staged by “crisis actors” to get more gun control legislation passed. Twenty first-graders and six educators were killed in the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting.
During two civil trials in Texas and Connecticut, parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones’ hoax conspiracies and his followers’ actions. They said they were harassed and threatened by Jones’ believers, some of whom confronted the grieving families in person saying the shooting never happened and their children never existed. One parent said someone threatened to dig up his dead son’s grave.
Jones is appealing the civil jury verdicts, citing free speech rights and questioning whether the families proved any connection between his comments and the people who harassed and threatened the relatives. He has since acknowledged that the shooting did happen.
Jim Vertuno, The Associated Press
