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Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, recording from 2018.
PHOTO: JIM BOURG/ REUTERS
Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' website Infowars has filed for bankruptcy in a US court.
Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings have been filed for several defamation lawsuits against the company.
This emerges from the documents published on Sunday in the US state of Texas.
The Chapter 11 process suspends all civil disputes and allows companies to develop remediation plans on the fly.
Jones is a vocal supporter of former US President Donald Trump.
"The man who tells Trump lies," DER SPIEGEL wrote in a report in 2017 about Jones, who, as a presenter on his own "Alex Jones Show" for decades, believed he was uncovering alleged intrigues and conspiracies.
Jones believes that the global elites have joined forces against the US to destroy the country.
Sentenced to pay damages several times
With his abstruse theses, which he spread from Texas, Jones was long considered a crazy marginal figure.
Then his supposedly close contacts with President Trump upgraded him – and made him and his website known to even more Americans.
“Trump and I have spoken several times since the election.
About freedom and our common goal of destroying our opponents,” Jones claimed in early 2017, just a few months after Trump’s surprising election victory.
Initially, his claim could hardly be checked, but quickly developed into a successful self-PR.
Jones' emergence from a media niche existence during Trump's administration had consequences: Spotify removed some episodes of the "Infowars" podcast in 2018, and Twitter permanently blocked the right-wing conspiracy theorist's account.
After the change of government in Washington, Jones was subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the storming of the US Capitol by Trump supporters in January 2021.
The past has also caught up with Alex Jones in the past year: he was sentenced to pay damages in three trials after years earlier he falsely claimed that the Sandy Hook Newtown, Connecticut, school massacre in 2012 was a "duck".
The shooting, which killed 20 children and six school workers, was fabricated by advocates of stricter gun laws and the mainstream media.
The Sandy Hook families declined Jones' offer to settle their defamation lawsuit in late March.
Jones had offered to pay each of the 13 plaintiffs $120,000.
How he could have financed that remains a mystery and at least contradicts his own statements in the bankruptcy application: According to court documents, "Infowars" gave estimated assets between 0 and 50,000 US dollars - with estimated liabilities of one to ten million dollars.
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