Furious Alex Jones vows to fight takeover of Infowars by The Onion asks his audience to buy up merch

Alex Jones is vowing to wage war on a stunning court-backed deal that would hand control of his embattled media empire to satirical outlet The Onion — blasting the move as an attempt to “steal his identity” as the conspiracy king fights to keep his platform alive.The conspiracy theorist was reacting to news that The Onion has struck a deal to temporarily take over Infowars, agreeing to pay about $80,000 to license the site from a court-appointed receiver while liquidation proceedings play out.The arrangement would last about six months, after which the satirical outlet could attempt to purchase the platform and its assets outright, with a Texas judge expected to weigh in at an April 30 hearing.Jones has appealed directly to his audience to dig into their pockets to help him, urging loyalists to snap up what he warned could be the “last run of Infowars merch” as he braces for a high-stakes legal showdown over the future of his brand.Jones told his audience Tuesday that The Onion is already claiming to own the site.“Now they’re running around saying they’ve hired a guy to talk like me, that they’re going to pretend to be me and spread lies to discredit me,” Jones fumed.“It’s totally illegal — but that’s what the left does.”The defiant stance came as Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion’s parent company, has moved to cement a deal that would transform Infowars from a conspiracy megaphone into a parody platform — a dramatic reversal for a site that once generated millions pushing fringe claims.At the center of its collapse is $1.4 billion in defamation damages Jones was ordered to pay families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, after years of false claims that the shooting was staged.Collins acknowledged that taking over Infowars was never a clean or simple acquisition, saying The Onion was not just buying a website but inheriting years of baggage tied to Jones’s harassment of the Sandy Hook families.“You’re no...