Alex Jones

Since the founding of the far-right radio and internet conspiracy website Infowars, Alex Jones has made a name for himself peddling wild antigovernment conspiracy theories. Jones’ most notable conspiracy theories revolve around national tragedies and terrorist attacks he labels as “false flag” operations.

With millions of regular viewers and more than two decades on the air, Jones has created a financial and brand empire out of selling misinformation and disinformation, as well as self-help supplements and dietary products. His uncorroborated reporting has led to the harassment of victims by internet trolls both online and in person. His politically charged stunts have made headlines, and by 2021, his calls for Trump supporters to protest the Biden presidency helped fuel the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol building. Jones is one of the most prolific and influential conspiracy theorists in the United States, and he currently owes almost $1.5 billion from judgments entered against him in defamation lawsuits, some of which he is appealing.

In his own words

“Children are being taught with drag queen story time that a big fat man in a clown outfit is a woman. I’m sorry. That’s not a woman. That’s a big fat man or a little boy dressed up like a girl. This is all very, very sexualization of children.” — “The Alex Jones Show,” Feb. 20, 2022

“Are there some really evil, wicked Jews, and wicked Jewish mafia out there? Absolutely. The Jewish mafia created the ADL in 1913 when a pedophile raped and killed a little girl, and they didn’t like the fact that he got in trouble, so they said, ‘We’re founding this organization to do this.’ And that’s who the ADL is. And it’s an evil organization, it’s very anti-American, who gives awards to George Soros, a Nazi collaborator, and award to Arnold Schwarzenegger who on record told Rolling Stone he loves Hitler.” — “The Alex Jones Show,” Feb. 3, 2022

“The system is publicly stealing this election from the biggest landslide and the biggest political realignment since 1776.” — Alex Jones, Million MAGA March, Dec. 12, 2020

“We will never back down to the satanic pedophile, globalist New World Order and their walking-dead reanimated corpse Joe Biden, and we will never recognize him.” — Alex Jones, Million MAGA March, Dec. 12, 2020

“I don’t know who is going to the White House in 38 days, but I sure know this: Joe Biden is a globalist, and Joe Biden will be removed, one way or another!” — Alex Jones, Jericho March, Washington, D.C., December 2020

“We understand the globalist false flag operation plan for next week. We all wonder, ‘Why did [then-House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi rush impeachment then hold it back for almost a month?’ They were lining it up for Martin Luther King Day because a yearly gun march, it’s happened for 20 years in Virginia at the Capitol. They’re planning to stage mass shootings, bombing or false flags to try to turn the American people against gun owners and President Trump.” — “Alex Jones Show,” Jan. 18, 2020

“When Muslims strike out and bomb churches or shoot up churches every Christmas, every Easter, all over the world, and run down whole families with vehicles, we’re told, ‘It’s not Muslims,’ so that’s going to cause unhinged people to get violent.” — “The Alex Jones Show,” March 2019

“Nothing against Jews in general, but there are leftist Jews that want to create this clash and they go dress up as Nazis. I have footage in Austin — we’re going to find it somewhere here at the office — where it literally looks like cast of ‘Seinfeld’ or like Howard Stern in a Nazi outfit. They all look like Howard Stern. They almost got like little curly hair down, and they’re just up there heiling Hitler. You can tell they are totally uncomfortable, they are totally scared, and it’s all just meant to create the clash.” — “The Alex Jones Show,” Aug. 14, 2017

“I want to tell Congressman Schiff and all the rest of them — Hey, listen, asshole … listen, you son of a bitch. What the fuck is your problem? You want to sit here and say that I’m a goddamn fucking Russian. You get in my face with that, I’ll beat your goddamn ass, you son of a bitch. You piece of shit. You fucking, goddamn fucker. Listen, fuckhead, you have fucking crossed a line. Get that through your goddamn fucking head. Stop pushing your shit. You’re the people that have fucked this country over and gang-raped the shit out of it and lost an election. So stop shooting your mouth off claiming I’m the enemy. You got that, you goddamn son of a bitch? Fill your hands. I’m sorry, but I’m done. You start calling me a foreign agent, those are fucking fighting words. … He’s sucking globalist dick.” — “The Alex Jones Show,” April 4, 2017

“A lot of liberal women, as you know, the new thing is having a jihadi. … There’s nothing sexier than a jihadi because it’s so fun to have him step on your head and kick you in the gut. Now, if the man treats you good and loves Jesus, he’s bad. But if he kicks you in the teeth and stomps on you, it’s liberal, it’s trendy, you go smoke hookah with him, and it’s fun.” — “The Alex Jones Show,” Feb. 8, 2016

“We’re going to return the republic. We’ll never be perfect, but my God, we’re not going to keep babies alive and harvest their organs. We’re not going to sell their parts for women’s cosmetics. We’re not gonna have Pepsi with baby flavoring in it.” — “The Alex Jones Show,” Dec. 8, 2015

“Same-sex marriage is sold as a civil right. And I believe that people as individuals — I’m a libertarian — have the right to do what they want as long as it doesn’t hurt others. And I’m not obsessed with the subject like people on different sides of the debate are. But clearly, from the eugenicist/globalist view, and they’ve written textbooks on it, you can look them up, they [the globalists] want to encourage the breakdown of the family, because the family is where people owe their allegiance. That’s why they want to get rid of God. Not because they’re atheists, but because they want the state to be God. And so they are taking the rights of an ancient, unified program of marriage and they are breaking it.” — YouTube interview, June 2013

“I’m here to tell you, 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms! It doesn’t matter how many lemmings you get out there on the street, begging to have their guns taken. We will not relinquish them! Do you understand?” — CNN’s “Piers Morgan Live,” Jan. 7, 2013

Background

Alex Jones has been dubbed “the most paranoid man in America” by Rolling Stone and the “king of conspiracy” by CNN. Jones is notorious for epic rants about “New World Order” plots for a one-world government, enforced eugenics, secret internment camps, militarized police and behind-the-scenes control by a global corporate cabal. In his estimation, the only way to avert this dystopian future is if true patriots resist before it is too late, and his tens of thousands of acolytes are taking heed, building bunkers, hoarding food and investing in precious metals — and, in some cases, resorting to violence.

His principal venue is Infowars, which peddles an extensive line of self-produced videos, “documentaries” that purport to prove a whole array of conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks, secret government concentration camps, and common antigovernment conspiracy theories and beliefs. Infowars operates under the parent company Free Speech Systems LLC, which was distributed by the Genesis Communications Network until it shut down in May 2024.

Some of these ideas, in line with the conspiracy propagandist sub-ideology of the antigovernment movement, have come to define the Infowars brand. Falsehoods around the true purposes of the United Nations (U.N.), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and health supplements are just some of the key components that have formed the foundation for the Infowars empire. Infowars has attacked global and domestic political institutions for years, asserting without evidence that such organizations as the U.N. are flooding the U.S. with immigrants.

Likewise, Infowars has popularized antigovernment conspiracies including the “deep state,” an idea that asserts a cabal of shadowy liberal elites is currently working to destroy the U.S. from within the government. The deep state is one of several conspiracies the outlet pushes; other long-running themes have included attacks on such agencies as FEMA, which Infowars claims has a network of prison camps designed to hold American citizens.

Jones has falsely and repeatedly claimed that shadowy groups within the U.S. government orchestrated — or at least refrained from preventing — the bombing of Oklahoma City’s Murrah Federal Building; the 9/11 attacks; the Boston Marathon massacre; the mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado, and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut; and the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In addition to being the king of conspiracies, Jones has made the Infowars brand synonymous with health supplements, an area Jones expanded into in 2013. As New York magazine reported in 2017, the Infowars empire appears to bring in a significant amount of money through its supplement page on the site. With a wide variety of products that claim to provide health benefits, from DNA Force Plus to Brain Force Plus and Super Male Vitality, the options appear to be almost endless. But as BuzzFeed reported that same year, after carefully reviewing some of the Infowars supplements they found most products were “a waste of money.” Although the products didn’t appear to pose any major health risks to consumers, the independent lab tests conducted by San Francisco-based lab Labdoor found no justifiable reason to pay the marked-up prices of Jones’ supplements, which cost an average of $30 each.

Through Jones’ diversified ventures even in the face of social media bans and lawsuits, he has managed to turn Infowars into one of the most prominent propaganda outlets of our time.

Early life

Born in Dallas, Texas, on Feb. 11, 1974, Jones, by his own account, had a typical suburban upbringing in a home where his father was a dentist and his mother a homemaker. He attended Austin’s Anderson High School, played football, smoked pot and did a lot of reading. One of the most influential books from his teenage years was None Dare Call It Conspiracy, a 1971 book by John Birch Society public relations representative Gary Allen that Jones still cites as “the quintessential primer to understand the New World Order.” The book sold 7 million copies and laid out the conspiracy theory that a cabal of global bankers and other sinister powerbrokers controlled policymaking, and treasonous elites and leftists in the United States were supporting Soviet interests.  Near the end of Jones’ senior year in high school, he appears to have taken note of key events that affected many in the growing antigovernment movement. About 100 miles from Austin, the federal siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, ended in a tragic April 1993 firestorm. The events in Waco had a galvanizing effect on Jones. Dropping out of Austin Community College, he began hosting a viewer call-in show on an Austin public access TV station, where he honed the bombastic style that has since become his trademark.

When bomber Timothy McVeigh leveled Oklahoma City’s Murrah Federal Building in April 1995, killing 168 people in retribution for the deaths of the Waco cultists, Jones simply could not accept that McVeigh was a fellow “patriot.” As Esquire magazine noted in an August 2013 profile, Jones “interviewed people who said they’d seen Timothy McVeigh planting explosives with a military escort and cops who mysteriously died after telling him the government did it.”

In 1996, Jones moved to Austin’s KJFK-FM to host a show called “The Final Edition,” where he warned of impending martial law and banged the drum to rebuild the Branch Davidian compound as a memorial to those he said were “murdered” by Attorney General Janet Reno and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). The show lasted until 1999, when according to The Austin Chronicle, he was fired because his views made it difficult to attract sponsors despite high ratings and winning the Chronicle’s “Best Austin Talk Radio Host” reader poll that year.

Jones barely skipped a beat. He set up an ISDN line in his house and began independently broadcasting via Infowars.com and national syndication by Genesis Communications to AM, FM and shortwave stations. His reach grew quickly, and syndication soon verged on 100 stations. But when 9/11 took place, Jones’ repeated references to false conspiracies about the attack were too much, and cancellations poured in. “I went on the air and said, ‘Those were controlled demolitions,’” he told Rolling Stone. “You just watched the government blow up the World Trade Center. I lost 70 percent of my affiliates that day. Station managers asked me, ‘Do you want to be on this crusade going nowhere, or do you want to be a star?’ I’m proud I never compromised.”

An unsuccessful Republican candidate for a Texas House seat in 2000, Jones has espoused politics that are pointedly hard right. He described himself as an “aggressive constitutionalist.” He subscribes to a narrow understanding of individual liberties and adheres to a broad defense of property rights. Jones has spread the conspiracy theory that immigration is part of a larger plan by evil forces bent on destroying our society.

The Obama era

After Barack Obama became the first Black president in January 2009, Jones expanded his repertoire of conspiracy theories to undermine government institutions and hurled ad hominem attacks at those close to the president. Unverified content became a staple of the Infowars platform, with wild allegations constantly making the rounds. Fabricated claims were ramped up and became frequent points of discussion on the show, like the idea that Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were actual demons who smelled like sulfur. Jones didn’t stop with members of Obama’s Cabinet; Infowars became a platform for frequent attacks on former first lady Michelle Obama, with Jones arguing that she was a transgender woman.

As Infowars grew and continued to spread false information through the internet and radio, Jones also seized the opportunity to diversify his outlets, going so far as to produce and release such films as Fall of the Republic: The Presidency of Barack Obama and The Obama Deception. Both films falsely allege the 44^th president was working to undermine U.S. sovereignty in an effort to establish the “New World Order” and implement a “totalitarian world government.”

During this period, Jones also adopted the birther narrative, a conspiracy theory that played on anti-Muslim tropes and nativist fears to argue that Obama was born in Kenya and was a secret Muslim conspiring to destroy the U.S. Like most conspiracy propagandists, Jones speaks of today’s pressing issues in apocalyptic terms, with the destruction of our country, and sometimes even the world, right around the corner.

The false-flag saga

Two frequent conspiracy theories Jones and his team at Infowars peddle include false-flag operation narratives and so-called “crisis actor” incidents supposedly orchestrated by the federal government.

For more than a decade, Jones has attracted a flurry of attention for his false-flag diatribes that call into question the reality of mass tragedies. These include, but are not limited to: the 2011 Tucson, Arizona, shooting that seriously wounded U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords; the 2012 Aurora, Colorado, theater shooting that left 12 dead and wounded 70 others; the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school that left more than two dozen people dead; the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 200 others; the 2015 San Bernardino, California, shooting that resulted in the death of 16; the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting that left 49 people dead at a popular LGBTQ+ venue in Orlando, Florida; the 2017 Las Vegas shooting that resulted in the death of 59 people; and the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17.

These conspiracies have few limits, as exemplified in early January 2011 when a 22-year-old man opened fire on a crowd in Tucson, Arizona. The shooter managed to kill six people and wounded at least 14 others, including Giffords. Days later, reports indicated the person charged with the shooting had been a fan of the Loose Change films, a series focused on 9/11 conspiracy theories that Jones helped produce.

When news of the incident reached Jones, the conspiracy theorist lashed out, choosing instead to dismiss the significance of  his antigovernment rhetoric and saying he believed the government was responsible for the shooter’s behavior through the use of “geometric psychological warfare” that can plant ideas directly into a person’s mind. According to Jones, the government must have been behind the idea of harming Giffords, with the overall goal of vilifying gun owners, conservatives and libertarians. Jones’ targeting of the federal government as an institution has only increased over the years.

Soon after, in July 2012, Jones found another opportunity to market his conspiracy theories. After a shooter opened fire in a crowded theater in Aurora, Colorado, Infowars began publishing articles with such headlines as “Overwhelming Evidence Mounts Indicating Colorado Shooting Staged.” The site continued promoting the lie that the shooter received training from the federal government with the goal of inciting public outrage and curtailing Second Amendment rights. As a result of such fabricated theories, family members of victims reported harassment by individuals who bought into narratives that the people killed in the theater were actors.

Cries of false-flag operations continued later that year after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. The attack resulted in the death of 20 children and six adults. In the aftermath, Jones used his platform to describe the event as being “completely false” and went after grieving parents, saying they were “crisis actors.” Jones repeatedly called the shooting a “hoax,” falsely claiming the federal government was responsible for the attack. According to Infowars, the shooting was meant to sway public opinion in favor of stricter gun control measures.

The unrelenting push to label the massacre a hoax and describe it as a false-flag operation resulted in torment for the families of those killed in the attack. Online, fans of Infowars began to question the legitimacy of the incident, arguing family members were part of an elaborate act. Real-world harassment campaigns began against parents, and the “crisis actor” narrative began to spread through social media platforms. After a barrage of intimidation and threats, some families had no other choice but to relocate, and in some cases the torment from Infowars fanatics continued for years.

Allegations that mass shootings were “hoaxes” received national attention and became a running theme on Infowars. Jones continued conflating mass tragedies with dark ploys by federal agencies to vilify gun-loving conservatives and expand the authority of said agencies.

The conspiracy theories, however, went beyond mass shootings. In April 2013, the Tsarnaev brothers planted explosives at the 117^th Boston Marathon. The bombings left three people dead and injured more than 200 others. As reports came out detailing the horrific act, Infowars once again helped spearhead mistrust in the investigations, arguing instead that the bombings had been a false-flag operation intended to increase the powers afforded to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Jones also reintroduced the idea that groups on the political right would be blamed for the attack, saying the FBI would find a way to blame the incident on the Tea Party. Jones’ fears never came to fruition, but that did not stop him from contriving new antigovernment conspiracy theories around major tragedies.

In 2015, Jones continued pushing out disinformation while adding an extra element to his conspiracies, anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-Muslim rhetoric. In December of that year, a terrorist duo linked to the Islamic State carried out a mass shooting at a center that offered services to people with disabilities in San Bernardino, California. The shooters left 14 people dead, most employees. A day after the shooting, Media Matters for America reported that Jones had once again jumped on the conspiracy bandwagon, this time alleging the incident was a false flag where the government might have been aware the shooting was going to take place and let it happen. Jones also claimed that because California has a long history of Democratic leadership, the shooting must have been part of a larger initiative. Jones said, “They cover up … that it’s the Islamic, turn it around and blame the Second Amendment and George Washington, instead of the very people that are doing this, mentally ill crossdresser liberals, and crazy jihadis.”

As false-flag narratives were infused with hate rhetoric, the disparaging attack on LGBTQ+ people was highlighted best by Jones’ comments after the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. The venue, popular with many Latinx LGBTQ+ patrons, was the site of the second-deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. It left 49 people dead and more than 53 people injured. As with other massacres, Jones didn’t hesitate to put out his uncorroborated assertions that the government once again let the tragedy occur to pass “hate laws to deal with right-wingers.” Jones verbally attacked the victims, saying both groups were working to promote the idea of pedophilia and child abuse in the U.S.

Conspiracy theories around the Islamic State soon became a scapegoat for Jones and were presented alongside the false-flag narrative. This theme continued into 2017, when a gunman opened fire from his hotel suite onto a crowd of concertgoers in Paradise, Nevada. The attack marks the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, with 58 people killed and more than 800 injured. Jones, of course, created his own explanation and falsely labeled the shooter an agent of the Islamic State, a leftist activist and an anti-Trump radical. Law enforcement agencies found no evidence any of the claims made by Jones were accurate.

The continued use of misinformation would eventually catch up to Jones during the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. As news developed around the incident that left 17 dead, Jones immediately began reporting uncorroborated information. This included misidentifying the shooter by sharing an image of a Massachusetts business owner who had nothing to do with the events in Parkland. Online, Jones labeled the misidentified man, Marcel Fontaine, as a communist. This sparked outrage from the Infowars audience and resulted in a harassment campaign launched at Fontaine. As with other tragedies, Jones also went after the survivors of the massacre, insinuating they could have been “crisis actors” and part of a “deep state false-flag operation.”

The attack set off the far right after survivors responded to the tragedy by kick-starting a national movement to call for gun reform. Unsurprisingly, Jones was unrelenting in characterizing the victims as “actors,” who he believed were being “coached” to attack the Second Amendment rights of gun owners. Jones directed much of the vitriol at one student in particular, David Hogg, who was 17 at the time and later became one of the main faces of the anti-gun violence March For Our Lives movement. Hogg, the son of a former FBI agent, was targeted by Jones and accused of being part of a larger “cover-up” to push an anti-gun agenda.

Lawsuits pile up

As the prominence of Infowars grew, so did the lawsuits in response to the materials circulated by Jones and his staff. Cases include:

Chobani Yogurt: In April 2017, the yogurt company Chobani sued Jones and Infowars for defamation, along with company Free Speech Systems LLC, for spreading “defamatory” and “false” statements about the company. Hamdi Ulukaya, founder of Chobani, sought legal remedies following accusations made on Infowars.com and “The Alex Jones Show.” Statements targeting the yogurt factory in Twin Falls, Idaho, alleged the factory was “importing migrant rapists” and was to blame for a rise in tuberculosis cases in the area. None of the accusations made by Jones or Infowars checked out.

Ulukaya, who started Chobani in 2007, moved to the U.S. in 1994 to study English and has since been an advocate for people immigrating to the U.S. Over the years, Ulukaya has employed hundreds of refugees coming to the U.S. from such countries as Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkey. Ulukaya and his company received a flurry of online harassment as a result of the misinformation being peddled by Jones and Infowars.

In May 2017, Jones settled the defamation case brought forth by Chobani and issued an apology on his radio show. In the apology, Jones admitted he had mischaracterized Chobani and agreed to redact statements previously published by his outlet, agreeing to not repost the baseless claims.

Unite the Right (UTR): The “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 brought together a collection of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and militia extremists to protest the city council’s plans to remove the monument of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. In the chaos, neo-Nazi sympathizer James Alex Fields Jr. plowed his car into counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring more than 30 others.

During the ordeal, Brennan Gilmore, a Charlottesville resident and counterprotester, used his cellphone to film the attack and upload it to Twitter. His video went viral and was picked up by Infowars and other far-right conspiracy platforms. In the suit, Infowars is alleged to have shared content that insinuated Gilmore had ties to billionaire philanthropist George Soros, as well as being linked to the CIA. The platform then accused Gilmore of previously helping overthrow the Ukrainian government before sparking chaos in Charlottesville with the goal of getting former President Trump out of office.

Gilmore attributed the wave of harassment and threats he received to the narrative created by Jones and his supporters. This included doxxing campaigns targeting Gilmore and other members of his family and sparked “an overwhelming volume of hate mail and death threats, hacking attempts, and even in-person harassment on the streets of Charlottesville,” according to the complaint.

Gilmore argued Jones and other extremists used his employment background and ties to both Democratic politicians and the State Department to vilify him and use him as a scapegoat to create distance between Jones’ extremist beliefs and Heyer’s death.

In March 2022, Jones settled the defamation suit and agreed to pay Gilmore $50,000.

Employees go to EEOC: Complaints around Infowars did not stem only from the outside. In February 2018, two former employees filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Rob Jacobson and Ashley Beckford, two former staffers, filed complaints with the federal agency alleging they were subjected to harassment including racial and gender discrimination.

In the complaints, Jacobson claimed Jones and other staff frequently mocked and ridiculed him because of his Jewish background. He also alleged staff referred to him as “The Jewish Individual,” “The Resident Jew” and “Yacobson” while being subjected to inappropriate pranks, sometimes involving other staff displaying gay porn on his work computer. According to the complaint, Jacobson was passed over for promotions and eventually fired in retaliation.

Beckford, the second employee, complained of similar mistreatment. According to her complaint, Beckford, who is Black, claimed that the organization denied a salary equivalent to her white coworkers, that staff subjected her to racial epithets, and that she was sexually harassed. This continued until she was finally fired. Like Jacobson, Beckford points to instances where she claims Jones and other staff members made inappropriate comments because of her skin tone. She says a producer even called her a “coon.”

The EEOC is not allowed to release information on, or even to acknowledge existence of, complaints. As of the date of publication, there is also no record of EEOC filing a case concerning Beckford or Jacobson’s allegations.

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Sandy Hook lawsuit: After 20 children lost their lives in the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre, Infowars was a main propagator of conspiracy theories surrounding the killings. Victims filed two separate lawsuits accusing Jones of defamation after he began peddling the idea that children killed in the shooting were “crisis actors.” Neil Heslin and Leonard Pozner, along with Veronique De La Rosa, parents of two of the slain children, sued Jones, Infowars and Free Speech Systems LLC in April 2018 in Travis County, Texas, seeking more than $1 million in damages. In addition to Jones, Infowars and Free Speech Systems, Heslin also included Infowars personality Owen Shroyer in his suit.

In the fallout of the Sandy Hook shooting, Pozner accused Jones of using the incident to push his own agenda, arguing the shooting was part of an act to attack Second Amendment rights. Allegations Jones made included pushing the ideas that the individuals killed were “crisis actors,” that the shooting was staged, and that the deaths were “fake.” These actions inevitably led to large-scale harassment that included doxxing, stalking, online harassment and threats. The harassment campaigns became so toxic that Pozner eventually moved his family multiple times to new areas in hopes of getting away from the turmoil. Like Pozner and De La Rosa, whose son Noah was killed in the shooting, Heslin, the father of Jesse Lewis, suffered a wave of harassment after Infowars began disseminating misinformation about the Sandy Hook shooting. In his suit, Heslin said Jones accused him of not holding the body of his dead son.

To Jones’ dismay, in September 2021 Judge Maya Guerra Gamble issued default judgments in the Pozner/De La Rosa and Heslin cases in the Civil District Court of Travis County, Texas. Jones and Infowars were found liable for all damagesfor his consistent spread of conspiracies and misinformation around the Sandy Hook shooting. Jones’ loss came after he failed to provide documents needed for the discovery and depositions.

On Aug. 4, 2022, a Texas jury ordered Jones to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages and $45.2 million in punitive damages to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis.

Families rally against Jones: The lawsuits surrounding his statements about  the Sandy Hook shooting only continued after several families and an FBI agent came together in May 2018  to sue Jones for defamation. The victim’s families and agent William Aldenberg, who was on the scene on the day of the shooting, accused Jones and his team of amplifying falsehoods and conspiracies which resulted in harassment and abuse to the family members.

By October 2022, Jones had lost all the litigation based on his Sandy Hook lies, and a jury awarded his victims over $1 billion. A federal bankruptcy judge ruled in October 2023 that there needed to be a damages trial held to see how much Pozner and De La Rosa were entitled to. The same judge, however, said the damages to the plaintiffs have been established. All that was left for a future trial was determining the amount of damages based on this “willful and malicious injury.” During a November 2023 court hearing, the families offered to settle the debt for only pennies on the dollar — $85 million over 10 years. Jones didn’t accept the families’ offer. By late June 2024, a trustee for the bankruptcy court announced plans to liquidate the Infowars media platform and its assets to help pay the $1.5 billion in lawsuit judgments against Jones. In November 2024, families of the victims approved of The Onion, a satirical publication, purchasing Infowars. However, a federal judge rejected the sale, citing how the bidding process was conducted. Therefore, as 2024 ended, Jones got to keep Infowars as the case continues to play out.

Pepe and copyright infringement: The Sandy Hook trials are just one kind of lawsuit that Jones and his network have faced in recent years. In addition to the numerous defamation cases filed by Sandy Hook parents, in May 2018 Infowars was named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Matt Furie, creator of the popular internet character Pepe the Frog. Furie sued Infowars and Free Speech Systems LLC for copyright infringement after, he says, the outlet began selling and profiting off internet products using the Pepe image to promote hate. Jones and Furie eventually settled out of court with Jones agreeing to pay $15,000 to Furie, with $14,000 going to Furie and $1,000 going to the amphibian conservatory Save the Frogs.

Infighting at Infowars: Cases continued to pile up for Jones after former Infowars D.C. bureau chief Jerome Corsi, with the help of Larry Klayman, sued Jones and others tied to the Infowars network for defamation. Additional defendants included Infowars personality and reporter Owen Shroyer and David Jones, Alex Jones’ father. In the suit, Corsi alleged Jones and Infowars associate Roger Stone made defamatory statements questioning the state of his mental health. At one point, Corsi was getting dragged into the Russian collusion investigation led by Robert Mueller. As The Daily Beast reported in 2019, Corsi hinted he might cooperate, prompting swift backlash from far-right figures such as Jones and Stone and kickstarting the infighting between conspiracy theorists. After being transferred to the Western Texas federal district court, the new judge dismissed the claims. The case is currently pending before the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals.  

Jones sues Jan. 6 House committee: Aside from spreading conspiracies through Infowars, Jones was one of the main propagators of the Big Lie after the 2020 election, driving him and other extremists to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021. Jones, who had been touring the country voicing his outrage over what he called election fraud, was present outside the Capitol building on the day of the insurrection. As a result, Jones was subpoenaed in November 2021 by the Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 attack. The committee focused on a series of Trump rallies that rallied crowds ahead of the insurrection, seeking to collect information on participants and donors, as well as to assess whether there was any level of coordination between organizers and members of Congress. Jones responded by suing the Jan. 6 House Committee, arguing he had no intentions of handing over his phone or other related documents. In late January 2022, when called on to give his testimony of the events preceding the insurrection by the House Committee, Jones claims to have responded by invoking his Fifth Amendment rights “almost 100 times.” Jones’ case against the committee was dismissed in March 2023.

Platforming hate

The creation of Infowars opened the door for a one-stop shop where extremists have found a home and platform to voice their dangerous and bigoted views. Over the years, Infowars has embraced a wide range of extremists including antigovernment militia leaders and KKK members.

Stewart Rhodes frequently made appearances on Infowars, where he spread antigovernment propaganda to the Infowars audience. Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers militia, gained national notoriety after members of his group helped storm the Capitol building on Jan. 6. Members who were present that day faced a wide range of charges including, but not limited to, seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding. Rhodes was eventually arrested. On Nov. 29, 2022, he was convicted of seditious conspiracy, and on May 25, 2023, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison for efforts related to stopping the peaceful transition of presidential power.

In the days leading up to the 2020 general election, Rhodes made an appearance on Infowars where he threw out the baseless claim that polls needed to be monitored in case far-left groups mobilized to threaten Trump voters. In his interview, Rhodes also peddled the notion that liberals were going to try and steal the election from Trump, an idea that eventually became known as the “Big Lie.”

Rhodes was not the only antigovernment extremist to become a regular guest on Infowars. Matthew Bracken, an antigovernment novelist and conspiracy theorist, frequently commented on issues related to immigration, Islam and government overreach. Online, Bracken dabbles with common antigovernment tropes, peddling fears around gun confiscations and Sharia law. His novels are filled with sexual violence and anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim tropes, always circling back to the idea that an invasion from foreigners poses an existential threat to the United States.

Although Jones is known to align himself with extremist leaders in the far right, he’s also helped newcomers establish themselves and cultivate followings. Kaitlin Bennett, better known as the Kent State gun girl, made headlines in 2018 when she open-carried an AR-15 on the Kent State University campus. Bennett eventually went on to become a Infowars personality, conducting interviews and attending events as a reporter for the network. Bennett developed a large enough following to start her own conspiracy-fueled outlet dubbed Liberty Hangout. Through her channels and donation accounts, Bennett profited from internet content that is engrossed in anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigrant and antigovernment rhetoric. In 2020, an antifascist group published a report showing that Bennett and her husband, Justin Moldow, had taken part in chats that were filled with antisemitic tropes. In 2016 Liberty Hangout also faced scrutiny when a poll on its Twitter account questioned the atrocities that had taken place in the Holocaust.

Along with platforming conspiracy theorists, Jones has also platformed the founders of hate groups, including Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys. In a 2018 appearance, McInnes joined Jones on the Infowars set as the latter went into a meltdown, railing against child molesters. Gavin is not the only Proud Boys associate to make an appearance on Infowars; in 2020, DeAnna Lorraine, a former Infowars host and failed congressional candidate for California’s 12^th District, interviewed Enrique Tarrio, former head of the Proud Boys. Tarrio used the opportunity to brag about the supposed explosion in membership numbers, saying the Proud Boys had amassed “22,000 members worldwide.”

Alongside platforming such hate figures as McInnes and Tarrio, Jones has also crossed paths with “alt-right” figure Stefan Molyneux. Molyneux, who gained a large following on such online spaces as YouTube, frequently cites pseudoscientific works to back up his hateful beliefs that non-white people are inferior to white people. Jones has not only hosted Molyneux as a guest, but also helped promote his works.

Additional guests have included white supremacists like Nick Fuentes and David Duke, both of whom have appeared as guests on Infowars. Jones, who refutes claims that he is an extremist, frequently appears alongside hate figures at counterprotests and other events. More recently, Jones was present with other far-right leaders in Washington, D.C., during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The constant platforming of hate figures, combined with incessant spread of conspiracy theories, has resulted in an all-out ban of Infowars from mainstream online spaces. The media crackdowns began in August 2018, when major tech companies banned Jones, Infowars and associated channels for violating terms of service. Such companies as YouTube, Spotify, PayPal, Apple, Google Play, Roku, and DLive have booted Infowars and Jones, citing his constant spread of misinformation and promotion of hate-filled narratives. While Jones was banned from Twitter for a while, in December 2023, he was restored to the platform, now called X, after Elon Musk put out a poll to users asking whether he should be restored.

Aligning with Trump

During Donald Trump’s first administration, he received overwhelming support from the far right, especially Jones, who was one of the first extremists to embrace the former president. As part of his campaign to reach out to all factions of the right, Trump appeared on Infowars in December 2015. Jones, who is typically critical of government institutions and politicians, showered Trump with praise, saying, “My audience, 90% of them, they support you.” Trump, who appeared to be relishing the exchange, closed the interview by telling Jones: “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.”

The unwavering support for Trump continued after the 2020 general election with Jones opting to promote the “Big Lie.” Infowars fully adopted the narrative that election fraud must have contributed to Joe Biden’s win as the 46^th president. Refusing to accept the outcome of the election, Jones and others led “Stop the Steal” rallies to protest the 2020 election results. At one point, Jones went on what he called the “Stop the Steal Caravan,” a cross-country trip with stops in several states to protest the Biden win.

These rallies and political stunts culminated in the Jan. 6 insurrection where Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building to try and stop the certification of the election results. In the days leading up to the chaos, the Infowars Parler account boasted to its 327,000 followers, “Today is the day – @alexjones leads largest patriot movement in history through Washington D.C.!”

In March 2021, Hatewatch broke the story that Jones had secretly become disgruntled with Trump. A Jones outburst, made amid filming a propaganda film, detailed the disillusionment he was starting to feel with Trump in 2019. The filmmaker, Caolan Robertson, brought the video forward after he became frustrated by what he perceived to be the exploitation of Trump supporters for profit. Robertson told Hatewatch that Jones had previously bragged about making $60 million in 2018 and had reportedly paid Robertson $16,000 per month for his work.

Although Jones helped spread misinformation ahead of the insurrection, it is unclear to what extent Jones had a role in financing and coordinating the mayhem. As The New York Times reported in March 2022, Jones has a long history of leveraging his name to help fundraise large sums of money. Jones appears to have inspired at least one heiress to help fund pro-Trump events that preceded the insurrection. Julie Fancelli, the 72-year-old heiress to the Publix supermarket chain, is reportedly a fan of Jones, leading her to donate $650,000 to organizations that rallied Trump supporters in D.C.

According to the Jan. 6 House committee investigating the insurrection, at least $200,000 of Fancelli’s donated money was deposited into business accounts linked to Jones.

In August 2022 the Jan. 6 House committee reportedly received two years’ worth of Jones’ text messages from Mark Bankston, the attorney representing Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis in one of the defamation cases related to the Sandy Hook shooting. Bankston received the phone records by accident from Jones’ own attorneys, and during the trial the Jan. 6 House committee expressed interest in obtaining a copy of the phone records that detail Jones’ communication history around mid-2020.

Messages allegedly showed Jones remained in contact with allies of former President Trump, but the records did not go back as far Jan. 6, 2021.  

Jones today

In 2023, Hatewatch released an investigation into Jones’ leaked personal text messages, which, along with testimony from former employees, contained evidence of deep cynicism at Jones’ companies that are at odds with his popular appeal. Caolan Robertson, a videographer who worked with Jones in 2019, told Hatewatch that Jones bragged in private that his fans would “buy anything” and saying that he sold them “dick pills.” Another former employee interviewed as part of that investigation explained how he believed Infowars staff looked down on its viewers and customers. “We all kind of did,” he said. “In a nutshell, one way or another. We kind of addressed the audience as this low IQ, ‘grab onto anything,’ gullible tribe of very dangerous people.”

On top of this, there is evidence in Jones’ leaked text messages of at least one staff member offering to alter the number of hits a video received. This seems to be a part of the larger business model of creating hype and then making money from it, selling his audience products that sometimes were marked up as high as 900%.

As with so many who peddle in conspiracy, those who end up hurt are not only the targets of conspiracy theory, but also those who give propagandists like Jones their trust.

Because of the pressures on Jones and his commercial ventures, several of his companies and related entities filed for bankruptcy in 2022. These include InfoW Inc., which owns Infowars content; IWHealth, which has the royalties and earnings from Jones supplements promotions; and Prison Planet TV, which owns the copyrights for prisonplanet.tv.

As mentioned earlier, in June 2024, a trustee for the bankruptcy court in the Sandy Hook case announced plans to liquidate the Infowars media platform and its assets to help pay the $1.5 billion in lawsuit judgments against Jones. In November 2024, families of the victims approved of the The Onion, a satirical publication, purchasing Infowars. However, a federal judge rejected the sale, citing how the bidding process was conducted. Therefore, as 2024 ended, Jones got to keep Infowars as the case continues to play out.