Alex Jones looked different in the final hours of Infowars, like he was ready for something new. Yesterday, broadcasting from his Austin studio for the last time, Jones had shaved his head and ditched his standard shirt and blazer (sans tie) in favor of a T-shirt with a huge red Infowars logo. For $49.99, you could purchase the same shirt from his website. “Every purchase of this T-shirt is aimed directly at ensuring that no matter what obstacles arise, Alex Jones will continue to spread the truth,” the product description reads.

Jones had lost a year-long legal battle with parents of Sandy Hook victims terrorized by Infowars fans after Jones falsely accused them of being “crisis actors.” Last year, he was ordered to pay more than $1 billion in damages to Sandy Hook parents, forcing him to declare bankruptcy and sell his company. Yesterday morning, The onion announced that it had purchased Infowars at auction and would turn the site into a satirical platform. On his last show, Jones said he was supposed to leave Infowars headquarters at some point today. After 25 years, during which Jones turned a local radio show into his own conspiratorial media empire, it was all coming to an end.

Where was it? “The studios are buzzing and ready,” Jones said on camera during the final stream, which took place on X rather than the Infowars website. “They are only five kilometers from here. We are ready to go. Jones has already mapped out his next plan: he will, of course, continue broadcasting through a new website not affiliated with the Infowars brand. And there’s good reason to think it will work. After Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News, he continued to stay relevant and attract an audience on the show he hosts on X. Jones still has 3.2 million followers on where he’s going. (He was banned from Twitter in 2018 but reinstated by Elon Musk last year.)

His approach to conspiracy – global theories in the service of the far right –is now commona fact that the series itself likes to take credit for. Modern conspiracy is entirely “downstream of Alex Jones,” said another Infowars personality, Owen Shroyer, in the show’s final stream. “What started at Infowars has metastasized.”

The loss of Infowars still matters to Jones, even as he begins broadcasting from a new studio and website. Infowars’ precise influence is difficult to track, but from 2022his show has been broadcast on approximately 30 radio stations and to millions of people who watch it online. Jones also still faces financial challenges. The onion has resumed its supplements business, a major source of its revenue. He will owe Sandy Hook families money until he pays off his remaining debt.

Jones will overcome this situation, however, with the support of some powerful friends. Steve Bannon appeared on the final stream, and on Wednesday, Roger Stone announced the news Live on Infowars, Tulsi Gabbard is Donald Trump’s choice for director of national intelligence. Jones also maintained a relationship with the president-elect that could work to his advantage in the future: He interviewed Trump in 2015, early in his presidential campaign. In 2016, he was a VIP guest during Trump’s Republican nominee acceptance speech. And in 2021, JD Vance congratulated him as a “truth teller”.

At one point while I was watching the Infowars show, the video cut away from Jones. That was it. Then Shroyer and another Infowars personality, Harrison H. Smith, appeared to move things along. Jones shouted something to them off-camera about lawyers coming. Each successive moment of the flow felt like it could be the last. Shroyer and Smith continued speaking in a series of dramatic aphorisms, as if putting the finishing touches on a monologue. Then they would immediately pick up and do it again. “The system doesn’t want you to know this information” continued: “This is not a victory for the bad guys. They are the ones who are revealed and brought to light. This will only backfire. » After announcing that the stream was about to end, Shroyer chimed in: “Everything is happening right now. The story unfolds. That had to be it. No. He continued: “We are the Jedi; we are destined to win in the end.

Then Jones came back for more. “I will never surrender; I will never back down,” he said. Jones then began to work his way through something about how his sinking ship was attached to a new ship and how an entire armada was coming, but the armada was a stand-in for the American people. He couldn’t bring it to an end. The camera cuts to a zoomed-in shot of him in his studio, alone at his desk, looking sullenly at some newspapers, with screens displaying the Infowars logo around him for the last time. The stream was cut off.

And then it came back. Jones appeared in the studio, but in a different shirt, suggesting the segment was pre-recorded. Melancholic, cinematic music played as Jones enthusiastically sold one of his supplements, something called “Ultimate Hydraforce.” Jones joked that he was going to get in trouble for false advertising because, as it turns out, Ultimate Hydraforce wasn’t just hydrating; it was also a pre-workout supplement and contains other beneficial elements as well. “I always try to offer you the best supplements; you can get the best results and come back and get them again,” Jones said. Infowars ends. But Infowars will never truly be over.