What is InfoWars media conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ net worth?
The alt-right agitator has lost two lawsuits and will need to pay $1 billion in damages. He is already bankrupt.
Alex Jones has lost another lawsuit and has been ordered to pay $965 million in damages. Jones has been sued by numerous families of Sandy Hook shootings after alleging that the horrific attack, which claimed the lives of 20 students and six teachers, was a government hoax. He called the parents of victims “crisis actors” and said the massacre was “staged”.
“I wish that after today, I can just be a daughter grieving my mother and stop worrying about the conspiracy theorists,” said Erica Lafferty, the daughter of slain Sandy hook principal Dawn Hochsprung, adding that “[the] hate, lies and conspiracy theories will follow both me and my family through the rest of our days.”
A separate trial in July in Austin, Texas found Jones to be liable to pay $49.3 million in damages to two more families, taking the total damages to over $1 billion.
Whether Jones can pay all this money is another story.
How much could Alex Jones’s wealth be?
One the final day of the Austin trial a financial expert, named Bernard Pettingill, testified on behalf of the parents of Jesse Lewis in a bid to ascertain Alex Jones’ true worth. He estimated that Jones’ personal worth was between $70 million and $140 million.
This is a result of Jones and his companies making more than $50 million a year between 2016 and 2021 due to his immense following. Loans were taken out in an attempt to hide his true wealth.
“We can’t put a finger on what he does for a living,” Pettingill said of Jones’s ability to capitalize on unhinged, baseless conspiracy theories. “He didn’t ride a wave – he created a wave.”
However, in the Connecticut trial a financial expert testified that Jones and his company are worth around $270 million, a figure Jones has disputed.
In the July bankruptcy filing, Jones’ team claimed that Free Speech Systems had made $13.1 million in gross profit in 2021, and had made $9.3 million during the first five months of 2022. However documents submitted as part of the filing also claimed that, as of 31 May 2022, the company had $14.3 million in total liabilities and equity.
“Just two days before jury selection is due to begin in Connecticut, Mr. Jones has once again fled like a coward to bankruptcy court in a transparent attempt to delay facing the families that he has spent years hurting,” said Christopher Mattei, an attorney representing some of the Sandy Hook families said at the second lawsuit.