Do we like Alex Jones?
Our score: 0 out of 10. Courts found him liable for defaming Sandy Hook families, and he spent years attacking LGBTQ+ people on air.
Alex Jones built Infowars into a conspiracy-and-supplements empire out of Austin, Texas. By 2026 it had come apart: a court-appointed receiver stopped paying the bills, and the studio went dark in early May. Jones said his last broadcast from the building was it, and that he would carry on from a new website.
The story he is best known for is Sandy Hook. He called the 2012 school shooting a hoax, and Connecticut courts found him liable for defamation. In late 2021 a judge issued a default ruling against him, citing his repeated failure to follow court orders and hand over evidence. A jury then awarded $964 million and the judge added $473 million in punitive damages. The US Supreme Court declined his appeal in October 2025, and the families' lawyer called it his “latest desperate attempt to avoid accountability for the harm he has caused.”
The Texas case went his way, sort of. In August 2026 the Third Court of Appeals unanimously cut a $50 million judgment to about $6 million, applying state caps on punitive damages. It did not overturn the defamation finding, and it did not touch Connecticut. Jones called it “a gigantic victory for the First Amendment”, while the families' attorney said it affected only two of their 19 claims.
The collapse has been messy. Jones blamed the receiver for shutting the place down, and he started the Alex Jones Network, which he says he does not own. The Onion, whose bid to take over Infowars has been blocked in court, launched a parody of the site in July, with $100,000 going to the Sandy Hook families. Their lawyers say the families have received nothing from Jones so far.
Now the good stuff, and honestly it is thin. No source we read points to charity or a kind act we could verify. Jones and his supporters frame the legal fights as a free speech battle. A court found his Sandy Hook claims were defamatory, and that is the finding we weigh.