Elon Musk’s X filed a limited objection to The Onion’s bid to purchase Alex Jones’ InfoWars out of bankruptcy, claiming it had “superior ownership” over the outlets’ X accounts.
The objection, filed Monday in a Texas bankruptcy court, attempts to block the parody news site from running Jones or InfoWars’ X accounts and objected to them being included in The Onion’s bid on Jones’ media operation. X’s lawyers pointed to the platform’s terms of service in its filing, saying any accounts were “exclusive property” of X and not its users.
X account holders simply own the content “they submit, post or display” on X, the filing claimed.
The company, as the owner of the platform, “grants each user a ‘personal, worldwide, royalty-free, non-assignable and nonexclusive license to use the software provided,” the lawsuit added.
That means, according to X’s lawyers, the company should retain the InfoWars account, as well as ownership of Jones’ account, which has 3.3 million followers; a judge will be deciding whether Jones’ personal X account is included in any selloff tied to his bankruptcy.
X clarified it “does not object to the proposed sale as a general matter,” merely the transfer of the social accounts as part of any deal.
Musk bought X, then known as Twitter, in 2022 for $44 billion. He reinstated Jones’ account, after he had been booted from the platform in 2018.
The Onion announced it had bought InfoWars earlier this month, but the deal has been held up in recent weeks. The outlet’s bid now hangs in the balance, with U.S. bankruptcy judge Christoper Lopez on Monday scheduling a hearing for December on whether the deal goes through.
Jones liquidated his assets and declared bankruptcy after he was ordered to pay a $1.5 billion defamation settlement to the parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting.
Jones had said on his show that the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, in which 20 children were murdered, was “staged” by the government in order to grab guns.
“It’s as phony as a $3 bill,” Jones said about the shooting. He also called the parents “crisis actors” who were faking their grief.
He was later sued for defamation by a number of Sandy Hook families.
In a court deposition, Jones said he “wasn’t trying to cause pain and suffering” to the families with his comments. He also said the parents and the kids were now “being used to destroy the First Amendment.”
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