A federal judge in Texas on Friday ordered the liquidation of the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones′s personal assets and was still deciding on his company’s separate bankruptcy case.
The decision could determine the future of his rightwing and conspiracy theory-laden Infowars media platform, as Jones owes $1.5bn for his false claims that the shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 was a hoax.
Judge Christopher Lopez approved converting Jones’s proposed personal bankruptcy reorganization to a liquidation. He was still set to rule on whether Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, based in Austin, Texas, also should be liquidated.
Many of Jones’s personal assets will be sold off, but he is expected to keep his primary home in the Austin area and some other belongings that are exempt from bankruptcy liquidation. He has already moved to sell his Texas ranch worth about $2.8m, a gun collection and other assets to help pay debts.
Jones has been telling his web viewers and radio listeners that Free Speech Systems is on the verge of being shut down because of the bankruptcy. A headline on Infowars’ website on Friday said: “Watch Live! Will This Be the Final Day of Infowars Transmissions?”
“This is probably the end of Infowars here very, very soon. If not today, in the next few weeks or months,” Jones told reporters before the hearing began.
Jones has been urging followers to download videos from his online archive to preserve them and pointing them to a new website of his father’s company if they want to continue buying the dietary supplements he sells on his show.
Jones has about $9m in personal assets, while his company has about $4m in cash on hand, according to the most recent financial filings in court.
Jones and Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022, when relatives of many victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting that killed 20 first-graders and six educators in Newtown won lawsuit judgments in Connecticut and Texas.
For years, and finally in court, families of children who were just six or seven years old when they were murdered at their Sandy Hook school told how Jones made their lives a “living hell” on top of the agony of losing their children to gun violence.
Jones claimed the massacre that killed 20 children and six adults at the elementary school was a hoax involving actors and was aimed at strengthening gun control. The harassment attracted a pile-on from the right wing and conspiracy theorists, who bombarded bereaved families with criticism and threats.
Classmates of those killed graduated from high school earlier this week, many calling for greater gun safety in the US.
The Associated Press contributed reporting