Alex Jones speaks in front of the Dirksen Building on Capitol Hill in Washington in September 2018.Jose Luis Magana/AP

Thursday afternoonA federal bankruptcy judge in Texas ordered an evidentiary hearing to examine the auction process that resulted in Information wars sold to the satire site Onionclaiming to want to guarantee the “process and transparency” of the sale. Information warsThe plot’s founder, mega-entrepreneur Alex Jones, unsurprisingly said the auction process was “rigged” and promised the review process would return the site to him, while the OnionThe CEO of said Mother Jones and other media that the sale is in progress. For reasons no one has yet explained, lawyers for X, formerly known as Twitter, the social media giant now owned by Elon Musk, appeared at the hearing and asked to be included in any future communication on the matter.

“I was told that Elon was going to be very involved in all of this,” Jones said during a live broadcast on X. After Information Wars was seized and the site shut down, Jones quickly began operating under the name and brand of a new company, dubbed Alex Jones Network, which broadcasts on X. Jones noted that X’s lawyers were present at the hearing , adding, somewhat mysteriously, “The cavalry is here. Trump is pissed. (He later clarified that “Trump knows I’m one of his biggest defenders.”)

A lawyer who appeared for X did not respond to a request for comment; neither does the X press office. Onion CEO Ben Collins, a former NBC News reporter covering misinformation, said Mother Jones Friday morning: “We won the bid. The idea that he was going to get away with this kind of thing gracefully is funny in itself. In a statement reprinted by Variety and other outlets, Collins said the sale is “currently underway, pending standard processes.” Collins previously said the plan was to revive Information wars as a satirized version of himself in January.

However, while this strange situation was occurring, Information warsThe website came back online Friday afternoon; shortly after, Jones and his team had also returned to Information warsworkshops. Throughout the morning of Friday and Saturday, the site was filled with stories preemptively declaring Jones’ victory over the Onion.

“I told you,” Jones sang on a Friday night show, behind his usual desk. “If you want a fight, you got one.”

Jones also swore that even if Information wars is sold, he would sue anyone impersonating him, as well as “the major Democratic gun control group” involved in the sale. (THE New York Times has reported that Everytown for Gun Safety, which advocates for gun law reform, plans to advertise on the relaunched satirical version of the site.)

Judge Christopher Lopez of the Southern District of Texas oversaw the bankruptcy process which lasted several years. Information wars. The company and Jones personally filed for bankruptcy protection amid civil lawsuits filed by parents of children who died at Sandy Hook. Jones was convicted by default of defaming the Sandy Hook families by repeatedly claiming the mass shooting was a “hoax” and suggesting that some of the parents were actors. During Thursday’s hearing, Lopez said: “no one should feel comfortable with the results of the auction” until the evidentiary hearing takes place. Christopher Murray, the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee who said OnionThe parent company of Global Tetrahedron LLC, which won the auction, reviewed the bids privately. According to Bloomberg, Murray told Lopez that Global Tetrahedron’s offer was a better option because the Sandy Hook families had agreed to forgo some of the money they were owed in order to repay Jones’ other creditors.

“I always thought my goal was to maximize recovery for unsecured creditors,” Murray said, according to Bloomberg. “And under one offering they are clearly better than under the other.”

Jones made it clear that he was working with a group of what he called “good guys” bidders, who he hoped would buy the site and keep it on the air. The only other offer apart from Onion’s was $3.5 million from First United American Companies LLC, the company that operates Jones’ online supplement store.

The evidentiary hearing is expected to take place Monday.