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Trump Wants to Kill Carried Interest. Wall Street Will Fight to Keep It.

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Trump Wants to Kill Carried Interest. Wall Street Will Fight to Keep It.

Nearly a month has passed since President Trump last spoke publicly of his desire to kill the carried interest loophole. (Yes, we know, some of you don’t consider it a “loophole.”) And yet the private equity industry, which stands to lose big if the president upends the tax break, is still bracing for a fight.

This is the biggest challenge to the provision since it was nearly neutered three years ago under former President Joe Biden, Grady McGregor writes for DealBook.

A reminder: the carried interest rule means that executives at hedge funds and P.E. and venture capital firms pay roughly 20 percent tax on their profits, a rate that’s so low it’s drawn criticism from Warren Buffett and from progressive senators like Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts.

One Washington lawyer described the lobbying effort to DealBook as “significant,” a sign of the escalating stakes.

Consider what’s happened in the past month: The American Investment Council, the private equity lobbying group, is reportedly circulating memos on Capitol Hill reminding lawmakers that private equity is a jobs creator. Venture capitalists, seemingly omnipresent in Trump’s Washington, grumble that they have to keep returning to Congress to “educate lawmakers” about the rule’s benefits. So-called free market groups, meanwhile, have banded together to ask Congress to maintain the status quo.

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“They’ll fight tooth-and-nail on any sort of change,” said Jessica Millett, a tax partner at Hogan Lovells.

The carried interest lobby is made up of wealthy real estate, venture capital and private equity groups, including Blackstone and the Carlyle Group. The American Investment Council, the National Venture Capital Association, and the Real Estate Roundtable have long gone to great lengths to defend their favorite loophole.

“It’s really an evergreen point of contention for these trade groups,” Jonathan Choi, a law professor at the University of Southern California, told DealBook.

What’s different this time: It’s hard to decipher how serious Trump is about killing it. Trump has long railed against carried interest, saying a decade ago that hedge fund managers exploiting the tax code were “getting away with murder.”

Behind the numbers: Eliminating carried interest would save the government an estimated $14 billion over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Trump is on the hunt for far bigger savings if he is to pass his “big, beautiful” tax bill in coming months without blowing up the deficit.

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Trump wanted to kill carried interest in his 2017 tax bill, only to give up amid opposition from lobbyists and Republican lawmakers, said Victor Fleischer, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine.

And now? “People think that it’s cheap talk,” Fleischer said.

But there are some in Democratic circles who believe that Trump may be more serious now than he was in 2017, DealBook hears — not least because those are the signals that they’re getting from the White House.

Trump’s disdain for carried interest is a rare fracture between him and Republican lawmakers. Traditionally, Democrats have been behind efforts to kill it, and when Trump renewed his call to eliminate carried interest this month, congressional Democrats — not Republicans — were ready with stand-alone bills to do just that.

But Trump may finally be eroding G.O.P. unity. Republican senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both members of the Senate Finance Committee, said in recent weeks that they were open to considering changes to the rule.

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The last threat to carried interest came in 2022 when former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act included a provision to kill it. But before the vote, lobbyists bombarded the office of Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the former Democrat (and then independent) of Arizona, with calls urging her to vote against it. Sinema ultimately voted for the bill, but only after carried interest was spared.

Lobbyists worry about G.O.P. defections, but see holding Republicans as easier than the last go around when they had to flip a pivotal on-the-fence senator. “They don’t need a Sinema to save them,” said Fleischer.

Short of killing the rule, Congress could reform it as a way to pacify Trump. Hogan Lovells’s Millett said there’s significant industry concern that Congress will gut much of the rule’s usefulness by including measures like extending the qualifying holding period from three years to five years before the carried interest tax break kicks in. Such an extension could scramble the way these firms do business. Private equity firms, for one, are often able to hold onto investments for five to eight years, Millett said.

Fleischer, the law professor, kick-started the debate on carried interest two decades ago when he detailed how the provision works in a widely read academic paper. Reform or no reform, he believes the loophole is here to stay.

It “will outlive us all,” he said.

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The labor market continued its steady growth. The nonfarm payrolls report showed employers had added 151,000 jobs last month, roughly in line with Wall Street expectations, and extending the job-growth streak to 50 months. That said, the effects of the Elon Musk-led job cuts by his Department of Government Efficiency will likely not show up in the labor market data for another month or two.

Tariff uncertainty prompts a major stock sell-off. Despite yesterday’s late-afternoon rebound, the S&P 500 ended the week sharply lower. A variety of factors have spooked investors, including fears of a downturn and concerns that President Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs policy will create a major disruption to global trade. A recap: Trump gave Mexico and Canada a partial tariff reprieve — exempting levies for one month on products covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the trade pact Trump signed in his first term. But more levies, including on aluminum and steel, are set to go into effect next week.

Elon Musk blew up at Cabinet officials at a White House meeting. One of his targets was Marco Rubio, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan report for The Times. The tech mogul turned President Trump’s cutter-in-chief fumed that the secretary of state had fired “nobody.” Trump eventually defended Rubio, and set ground rules. Cabinet chiefs are to run their departments, and Musk is to act as an adviser, the first clear sign the president is willing to put limits on the billionaire’s power in Washington.

Several tech start-ups weigh going public. CoreWeave, a seller of cloud-based Nvidia processing power, filed to go public on Monday, putting itself in position to become the year’s first major technology I.P.O. (The company denied a report that Microsoft, by far its biggest customer, was shedding some of its contracts with the start-up.) Other companies have also talked with bankers about following suit, DealBook’s Lauren Hirsch and The Times’s Mike Isaac reported, including Discord, the social chat app, and StubHub, the ticketing software company.

In 2013, Jessica Lessin, a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, left the paper to start a competing publication, The Information.

A few years later, her fledgling newsroom had grown to nearly two dozen reporters and editors and booked more than $20 million in sales, as she revealed in a profile I wrote for The Times’s Sunday Business. She says she has since doubled her editorial staff and continued to stay profitable, with revenue growing 30 percent in 2024 over the previous year.

But it’s her investments outside of The Information that are gaining attention these days.

Her company Lessin Media has put money into Semafor, The Ankler, the former Business Insider editor Nicholas Carlson’s Dynamo, Kevin Delaney’s Charter Works and other titles at a time when the news business appears bleaker than before. Lessin, however, is optimistic.

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I caught up with the entrepreneur about her latest media bet, the tennis publication Racquet magazine, and what she thinks about the changing news landscape. This interview has been edited and condensed. (An extended version is available here.)

This investment seems different from your others. How did you come to it?

I actually got introduced to Racquet by a number of fans of the magazine. And it was like the weirdest experience, because I was reading the magazine, and then I wanted to buy, like, all the clothes in the magazine. I went to the website, and I wanted to buy all the merch. And they’re hosting an event at the U.S. Open. And I was like I want to go to that. And I want to read this great profile about the mental coach behind the world No. 1 tennis player.

This sounds like it was something that just struck you personally. I assumed you’d be more focused on sales and market size and margin.

It’s absolutely both. I’m absolutely all about revenue and controlling your destiny and direct subscription revenue, and that being the true north.

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I’ve also always been about that founder that has the real expertise. And I think big media companies dismiss the niches. They think they’re too small. Across all of these investments, the criteria I’m looking for is there’s got to be real revenue and a revenue model that is direct and user-driven where the brands can control their own destiny. But also a very passionate founder.

Subscriptions are a big part of your media thesis. Do all the companies you invest in have that component?

Not all do. You know Nich Carlson’s new company, Dynamo, that I invested in, I don’t think they do yet, but all the companies have plans and road maps.

You mentioned that big media companies are missing the picture on niche publications. Is that the future of news? Or at least one way to be successful?

Yes, absolutely.

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Are legacy newsrooms too focused on the old model?

I do think that many of the large media organizations haven’t gotten the memo fully. I mean, it’s fascinating to watch The Wall Street Journal integrate its tech coverage with its media coverage.

You’re talking about how The Journal recently cut some tech reporters and combined it with the media team.

Yeah. Of course, it comes in a landscape where there have been a lot of layoffs across different teams and publications and it’s very sad. It’s my alma mater, there are wonderful people there. But what’s so interesting to me is the idea of consolidating different thematic areas.

At The Information, our formula is just very different. It’s going very, very deep into subject matters, into beat reporting. I think the most ambitious, world changing, impactful stories come from gathering string around companies and people and areas of expertise. And I worry, because I see a lot of other newsrooms with very talented reporters put those reporters on very broad and enterprise-like beats. How can we hold companies and leaders accountable without that kind of reporting day in and day out?

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You’ve invested in seven media start-ups. Are you going to do a roll up?

I am very actively trying to do deals that would enhance The Information and that are related to it — being the authority on tech — so rolling up things like that within The Information, absolutely. But most of our investments don’t fit into that category. It’s just me believing so much in the founder and what they’re building. But I am absolutely a believer that there will be opportunities for The Information to acquire a number of companies in a lot of different areas.

The big media story right now is The Washington Post, and since we’re talking about investment opportunities, my old boss, Kara Swisher, is out there trying to get people together to buy it. What do you think?

I texted her when I saw it, and I was like, “You go!” I am all for passionate journalists trying to help shape the future of news businesses. She’s certainly one of those. I think she’s also a pundit, and I think that can get in the way of some types of journalism. But for people who really love news and love brands and want to shape them, that’s the kind of transformation that’s going to serve readers really well. But there’s no way Jeff Bezos is going to sell The Washington Post.

Do you know something?

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I have no inside information. I just think Jeff Bezos is finally flexing a little, and by that I mean his announcement that the opinion pages would now primarily reflect “free markets and personal liberties” or however he said it.

Do you think it was a good move?

I do believe that as the owner of a publication it makes sense for them to shape a point of view of their opinion pages. But it’s way too early to tell.

Let’s see what he writes.

Yeah. And that’s not a move you make if you’re trying to offload something. That’s a move you make when you are establishing yourself as a proprietor. He’s really digging in.

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Kevin Warsh, Trump’s Pick to Lead Fed, Faces Senate at Tricky Moment

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Kevin Warsh, Trump’s Pick to Lead Fed, Faces Senate at Tricky Moment

Kevin M. Warsh, President Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve, has spent years refining his pitch for why he should get one of the most powerful economic jobs in the world.

At his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, he will have to convince Senate lawmakers that he is ready to step into the role, which has become politically explosive amid Mr. Trump’s relentless attacks on the institution and its current chair, Jerome H. Powell.

Mr. Warsh, who is scheduled to testify before the Banking Committee at 10 a.m., plans to commit to being “strictly independent” on decisions related to interest rates, according to his prepared remarks. He also plans to tell lawmakers that he is unbothered by Mr. Trump’s incessant calls for substantially lower borrowing costs. And he will use his opening statement to underscore his focus on disrupting the “status quo” at an institution he said just last year was in need of “regime change.”

“In a time that will rank among the most consequential in our nation’s history, I believe a reform-oriented Federal Reserve can make a real difference to the American people,” he plans to tell lawmakers, adding: “The stakes could scarcely be higher.”

Mr. Warsh, 56, faces significant hurdles to winning confirmation. He has broad support among Republicans, who control the Senate and can confirm him along party lines. Yet his candidacy has stalled because of an ongoing investigation by the Justice Department into Mr. Powell and his handling of the Fed’s headquarters renovations.

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Mr. Powell’s term as chair ends May 15, but Mr. Warsh looks increasingly unlikely to be in place by then. That’s because Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina — a Republican on the Banking Committee who has expressed support for Mr. Warsh — has vowed to block any attempt to confirm a new Fed chair until the legal threats into Mr. Powell are resolved. For Mr. Tillis, the investigation is a blatant attempt to coerce Mr. Powell into lowering rates, undermining the Fed’s independence and confirming the politicization of the Justice Department.

“I’m not going to condone bad decision-making and bad behavior,” Mr. Tillis told reporters on Monday in reference to the Justice Department’s lack of evidence of any wrongdoing.

The department has vowed to continue its investigation, despite numerous legal setbacks.

“I think ultimately, he will be confirmed,” Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, another Republican on the committee, told reporters on Monday. “I just don’t know what decade.”

Mr. Warsh’s ascent would mark a homecoming for the Wall Street financier, who served as a Fed governor from 2006-11.

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Since leaving the Fed, he has amassed assets worth well in excess of $100 million, according to financial disclosures submitted before his hearing. Those have drawn scrutiny because Mr. Warsh repeatedly invoked “pre-existing confidentiality agreements” to avoid disclosing the details behind several of his investments. He has said he would divest a substantial amount of his assets before taking the job.

The global financial crisis dominated Mr. Warsh’s first tenure at the Fed, thrusting him into the middle of discussions about how the central bank should respond to the threat of bank failures, turmoil in financial markets and a painful recession that followed. Mr. Warsh, then the youngest-ever member of the Board of Governors, was initially supportive of the Fed’s efforts to shore up financial markets by buying enormous quantities of government bonds and expanding its balance sheet to ease strains in financial markets and support growth by keeping market-based rates low.

But he soon soured on subsequent efforts to buy more bonds and resigned in protest. That experience has stuck with Mr. Warsh, who has made a smaller balance sheet a pillar of his plans if he takes over as chair.

Mr. Warsh would also be likely to usher in changes to how the Fed communicates its policy views, having expressed misgivings about its strategy of providing so-called forward guidance, or hints about how interest rates may change in the future to guide expectations. He has also suggested that policymakers across the Fed system should speak far less. Mr. Powell held a news conference after each rate decision, or eight a year, and delivered speeches with regularity. Mr. Trump’s pick to join the Fed last year, Stephen I. Miran, often speaks multiple times a week.

“Once policymakers reveal their economic forecast, they can become prisoners of their own words,” Mr. Warsh said in a speech last year. “Fed leaders would be well served to skip opportunities to share their latest musings. The swivel-chair problem, rhetorically waxing and waning with the latest data release, is common and counterproductive.”

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What is far less clear is how much Mr. Warsh would heed the president’s demands for lower interest rates. Mr. Trump said he would not pick someone for chair who did not support lower borrowing costs.

Mr. Warsh sought in his opening statement to downplay the costs of a president’s voicing his opinions about rates, saying central bankers must be “strong enough to listen to a diversity of views from all corners, humble enough to be open-minded to new ideas and new economic developments, wise enough to translate imperfect data into meaningful insight and dedicated enough to make judgments faithfully and wisely.”

Earlier this year, many officials at the Fed saw a path to gradually lower rates as the impact of Mr. Trump’s tariffs faded and inflation restarted its slide back toward 2 percent after almost of year of stalling out. The war in Iran — and the energy shock it has unleashed — has upended those forecasts, however, prompting officials to turn wary about lowering rates.

Mr. Warsh will face questions on Tuesday about the economic impact of the war and how it has changed his thinking around the Fed’s ability to lower rates. While at the Fed, he was known as an inflation hawk who often argued against providing policy relief for fear that it could stoke price pressures. He also said the Fed should aspire to engage in rule-based policymaking that stems from formulas that prescribe how officials should set rates based on levels of inflation and employment.

While campaigning to be chair, Mr. Warsh embraced the need for rate cuts, arguing that there was a path for lower borrowing costs because of his plans to shrink the balance sheet, which would lift longer-term rates that then could be offset by lowering short-term ones. He also argued that higher productivity from the boom in artificial intelligence could unleash higher growth without stoking inflation, which could give the Fed more space to lower rates than otherwise would be the case.

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In his opening statement, Mr. Warsh made clear, however, that a failure to bring down inflation, which has been stuck above the Fed’s 2 percent target for roughly five years, would strictly be the Fed’s fault, suggesting that he would shoulder the blame if he did not bring it back down during his tenure.

“Inflation is a choice, and the Fed must take responsibility for it,” he will tell lawmakers.

Megan Mineiro contributed reporting.

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New lawsuit alleges Uber is violating drivers’ rights. Here’s how

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New lawsuit alleges Uber is violating drivers’ rights. Here’s how

A gig drivers organization filed a lawsuit against Uber, alleging the company violated their rights by not providing a sufficient appeals process for deactivated accounts.

The lawsuit was announced Monday during a news conference by Rideshare Drivers United, an independent organization that represents more than 20,000 app-based drivers in California.

The organization, represented by attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, said thousands of drivers have been terminated with little to no explanation, many of whom had worked as drivers for years and had high ratings.

“Drivers want to stand up for themselves and for basic fairness, and we can’t when there is no fair appeals process,” said Jason Munderloh, the chairman of the organization’s Bay Area chapter.

The lawsuit is the latest in a long battle between drivers and major ride-hailing service companies. Uber, a frequent target of lawsuits, has often faced claims of labor violations and vehicle collisions.

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The tension could reach the November ballot, as the ride-hailing giant attempts to curb the laundry list of legal action. Uber is advocating for legislation that could cap how much attorneys can earn in vehicle collision cases.

Rideshare Drivers United said Monday that Uber is violating Proposition 22, which passed in 2020 and was upheld by the state Supreme Court in 2024. The legislation was a win for gig economy companies, allowing them to classify drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, provided certain requirements are met.

Uber is violating a clause in the proposition that requires the company to provide an appeals process for drivers who are terminated, the organization said.

“Uber has had six years of hiding behind Prop. 22 on issues favorable to it and ignored the law when it seemed inconvenient,” Munderloh said.

The lawsuit seeks a statewide judgment that Uber has failed to comply with Proposition 22, along with an opportunity for the thousands of deactivated drivers to appeal their terminations. The suit also seeks reactivation and back pay for drivers who were unfairly terminated.

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Uber denied the claims in the lawsuit and reaffirmed that it offers a clear appeals process, in compliance with Proposition 22, a spokesperson told The Times.

“This is a baseless lawsuit by an opportunistic trial lawyer seeking to overturn Proposition 22 and the will of California voters,” the spokesperson said. “We’ll fight this publicity stunt in court while continuing to strengthen drivers’ voice on the platform.”

The company posted on a blog Friday that details its termination and appeals process. Every deactivated driver is given a reason for termination and offered a review process for more information. Drivers can then appeal, and the appeal is evaluated by a real person, according to the website.

Rirdeshare Drivers United said drivers are often terminated for vague reasons and are met with endless automated chatbots when inquiring about their terminations.

Drivers who request an appeal are either automatically denied or given the runaround without being offered an actual appeals process, Liss-Riordan said.

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Devins Baker had given about 18,000 rides for Uber in eight years and boasted a 4.96 rating when his account was unexpectedly terminated just before Christmas in 2024. An automated message from the company claimed Baker had driven recklessly and offered no other information, he said.

He wasn’t told what resulted in his termination, but said that during his last ride, he had to drive defensively to avoid crashing into a vehicle that was merging recklessly on the freeway.

Baker had to hit the brakes to avoid the collision, and the passenger, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt, fell off the seat.

Baker was not offered a chance to appeal, he said.

Proposition 22 carved out a new classification for gig economy workers, affording them limited benefits, but not the rights granted to full-fledged employees.

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The legislation received strong financial backing from Uber.

A group of drivers challenged Proposition 20 in 2024, claiming the law is unconstitutional because it interferes with the state Legislature’s authority to provide workers’ compensation protections to drivers. Their claims were ultimately rejected by the state’s highest court.

Ride-hail drivers have long raised concerns about low wages, minimal workplace protections and exploitative practices.

More recently, they have grappled with rising gas prices amid the war in the Middle East, which has driven some away from the ride-hailing business.

“The pay is not good in the first place. We do what we can to create a solid framework for ourselves and our families,” said Munderloh, who works as a part-time Uber driver. “It’s hard enough with how little they pay us, and then even that is taken away.”

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Various gig companies, including Uber, Lyft and DoorDash, have said Proposition 22 is a crucial component of their businesses and threatened to shut down in the state if the proposition were struck down. These companies poured hundreds of millions of dollars into a campaign to sway voters on the proposition.

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The Onion Signs New Deal to Take Over Infowars

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The Onion Signs New Deal to Take Over Infowars

When Infowars, the website founded by the right-wing conspiracist Alex Jones, came up for sale two years ago, an unlikely suitor stepped up. The Onion, a satirical news outlet, planned to convert the site into a parody of itself.

That sale was scuttled by a bankruptcy court. Now, The Onion has re-emerged with a new plan: licensing the website from Gregory Milligan, the court-appointed manager of the site.

On Monday, Mr. Milligan asked Maya Guerra Gamble, a judge in Texas’ Travis County District Court overseeing the disposition of Infowars, to approve that licensing agreement in a court filing. Under the terms, The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, would pay $81,000 a month to license Infowars.com and its associated intellectual property — such as its name — for an initial six months, with an option to renew for another six months.

The licensing deal has been agreed to by The Onion and the court-appointed administrator. But it is not effective until Judge Guerra Gamble approves it, and Mr. Jones could appeal any ruling. That means the fate of Infowars remains in limbo until the court rules, probably sometime in the next two weeks. Mr. Jones continues to operate Infowars.com and host its weekday program, “The Alex Jones Show.”

Mr. Jones had no immediate comment.

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The battle over Infowars has been a long and fraught saga, and Mr. Jones — a notorious peddler of lies and invective — has used his bully pulpit for more than a year to crusade against The Onion’s efforts to take over the platform. The site is in limbo because of a series of defamation lawsuits against Mr. Jones filed by families of victims of the mass shooting in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, which Mr. Jones falsely claimed was a hoax.

People who believed his lies that the shooting was staged subjected the families to years of online abuse, harassment and death threats.

In 2018, the families of two Sandy Hook victims sued Mr. Jones for defamation in Texas, where Infowars is based, and relatives of eight other victims sued him in Connecticut. In 2022, a jury in Texas awarded the parents of one victim $50 million.

Mr. Jones declared bankruptcy later that year. A trial pitting him against the parents of a second victim was delayed indefinitely by that move. Later that year, a jury awarded the families and a former law enforcement official who sued Mr. Jones in Connecticut a total of $1.4 billion.

Mr. Jones appealed the Connecticut verdict, the largest defamation award in history, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In October, the justices declined to hear the case.

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To help satisfy Mr. Jones’s debts to the Sandy Hook families and other creditors, Judge Christopher Lopez of U.S. Bankruptcy Court ordered in mid-2024 that a court-appointed trustee sell off equipment, intellectual property and other assets owned by Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company.

In late 2024, a sealed-bid silent auction drew only two contenders: The Onion’s parent and a company associated with Mr. Jones. The trustee and the families chose The Onion’s bid, despite its potential to yield less cash than the rival company’s. Mr. Jones and his lawyers cried foul, and Judge Lopez intervened, saying that the process was opaque and that The Onion’s bid was not obviously superior. He rejected plans for a do-over of the auction, instead directing the families to seek a liquidation through Judge Guerra Gamble’s court in Texas, where the first defamation case was heard and won.

In August, Judge Guerra Gamble ruled that a court-appointed administrator would take over and sell Infowars’ assets, reopening the door to The Onion. “We’re working on it,” Ben Collins, the chief executive of Global Tetrahedron, wrote on social media on the same day as Judge Guerra Gamble’s ruling.

The Onion’s proposal, worth $486,000 in its initial six-month term, does little to satisfy the enormous damages awarded to the Sandy Hook families. The families have been fighting to collect since Mr. Jones filed for personal and business bankruptcy. Mr. Jones is expected to lose access to his studio and equipment as part of the deal, Mr. Collins said.

The Onion plans to turn Infowars into a comedy site with satirical echoes of the fringe conspiracy theories that Mr. Jones is known for. Tim Heidecker, one of the comedians behind “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, has been hired to serve as “creative director of Infowars.” He said he initially planned to parody Mr. Jones’s “whole modus operandi.”

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Mr. Heidecker has been working on his impression of Mr. Jones. But eventually, when that joke gets old, Mr. Heidecker hopes to turn Infowars into a destination for independent and experimental comedy, he said.

“I just thought it would be just a beautiful joke if we could take this pretty toxic, negative, destructive force of Infowars and rebrand it as this beautiful place for our creativity,” Mr. Heidecker said in an interview. During a recent trip to Philadelphia, he traveled to the Liberty Bell to film a video in character as the new creative director of Infowars.

“The goal for the families we represent has always been to prevent Alex Jones from being able to cause harm at scale, the way he did against them,” said Chris Mattei, the lawyer who argued the Connecticut families’ case in court. The deal with The Onion promises “to significantly degrade his power to do that.”

The Onion also plans to sell merchandise and share the proceeds with the Sandy Hook families.

“We are excited to lie constantly for cold, hard cash, but this time in a cool way, and we’ll make sure some of it gets back to the families,” Mr. Collins said.

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While broadcast programming is “out of my lane,” Mr. Mattei said, “satire and humor can be universal. If their programming can be of interest to Jones’s former audience, and help bring them out of the dark, that would be wonderful.”

In the meantime, the company has been filming satirical videos in antipation of the court’s ruling. One of them features a fictional anchor from the satirical Onion News Network, “Jim Haggerty,” who defects from the mainstream media to become a conspiracy monger. He will be played by the actor Brad Holbrook.

“For 35 years, I was part of the problem,” Mr. Haggerty intoned in a dramatic trailer released by The Onion. “But now, I’m free of my corporate shackles, and my only business is freedom.”

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