The Onion Infowars Takeover Battle Moves to Texas Supreme Court as Jones Forced to Move Studios

The fight over whether the satirical website The Onion can take over Infowars, the media company run by conservative conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, is now in the state's highest court. But meanwhile, Jones says he is still being forced to leave his Infowars studio, and plans to move to a new one Thursday night and rebuild under new ownership.

The Onion had hoped a deal would be approved by a lower court judge Thursday, letting it license the Infowars brand name and turn the show into a mockery of itself. Proceeds would have gone to the Sandy Hook families who won more than $1.3 billion in a defamation case against Jones, after he spread lies that the 2012 elementary school shooting never happened and the grieving parents were just actors.

The families, who were stalked and harassed by Jones supporters for years, support The Onion deal. Jones won a reprieve from a Texas appeals court Wednesday, and the families' attorneys filed their own appeal to the Supreme Court of Texas on Thursday. Control of Infowars is now in limbo until the higher courts weigh in.

In a video posted Wednesday, Jones said he must move from his Infowars studio in Austin, Texas, because a court-appointed state receiver is no longer paying the bills to keep it open. The receiver is charged with taking control of Jones's assets and selling them to pay the families what Jones owes them.

"He's not paying the bills, like the rent or the Internet, the satellite, so we have to shut down," Jones said, adding that Thursday "is the last official Infowars show."

Still, Jones called the appeals court decision "a massive victory," saying the lawsuits against him "failed to silence us and it's created a Streisand effect to only boost people's interest into why we're under such attack."

Lawyers for the families, who have yet to collect a penny from their judgment against Jones, say they are pressing on and "look forward to the Onion's ultimate takeover of Jones's corrupt business."

"The Sandy Hook families have endless patience and over $1 billion dollars in judgments against Alex Jones and Infowars," said attorney Chris Mattei. "His desperate legal maneuvering can do nothing to stop the inevitable closure of Infowars, and we call on the Texas courts to recognize that the families, whose final judgments have been blessed by the United States Supreme Court, are entitled to a speedy and just resolution."

For his part, The Onion CEO Ben Collins called out the "insane, unprecedented legal stalling." He wrote in a post on social media, "We now expect new traps in Alex Jones' amoral war to deny paying the Sandy Hook families, but we're freshly surprised by the U.S. legal system's appetite to put up with it."