After buying InfoWars in an auction tied to Alex Jones’ bankruptcy, The Onion’s CEO Ben Collins says the company is building a broader future—one that includes a documentary for America’s 250th anniversary, a shift away from low-quality advertising, and a rene
When The Onion won an auction for InfoWars during Alex Jones’ bankruptcy proceedings, it wasn’t the end of the story. It was the signal.
Onstage at the Fast Company Most Innovative Companies Summit, CEO Ben Collins talked about what comes next—starting with a documentary project aimed at America’s 250th anniversary called “Birth of a Nation.”
“For the 250th anniversary of America, we’re making a documentary called ‘Birth of a Nation,’ which is great,” Collins said onstage at the Fast Company Most Innovative Companies Summit, in a conversation with Jill Bernstein.
The documentary is part of a larger push underway at The Onion after Collins and a group of investors acquired the publication in 2024, a move Collins described as urgent rather than opportunistic.
Before the acquisition, Collins spent years at NBC News covering extremism and misinformation online. “I was covering neo-Nazis and psychopaths, a.k.a., like the United States government for NBC News,” Collins said. “It was a tiresome thing to do.”
He said he left NBC News shortly before Christmas in 2023, intending to write a book—until an AdWeek report showed The Onion was for sale.
“We can’t lose this,” he recalled thinking. “We’re losing everything. We can’t lose this.”
Within weeks, Collins assembled investors, including Twilio founder Jeff Lawson, and acquired the publication.
The shift away from weak ad revenue
Collins said the business looked different at the time of the acquisition. The Onion was generating about $1.5 million annually, much of it through low-quality advertising networks.
After the purchase, Collins said the company changed direction—putting more weight on subscriptions, print products, and audience support.
The numbers he cited suggest a new kind of traction. Collins said The Onion now has around 80,000 paying subscribers, more than 3 million YouTube subscribers, and a digital audience of roughly 30 million people.
His message was that the path forward doesn’t require surrendering to whatever media power centers demand.
“We wanted to make a case to everybody else in the media that if you do actually double down on the stuff that your readers like and you don’t capitulate and try to browbeat and suck up to power left and right . . . it’s better for you,” Collins said.
An InfoWars bet—right before the comedy sequel
The Onion’s effort to purchase InfoWars brought immediate attention because of what was at stake in the timeline.
Collins said the bid came during Jones’ bankruptcy proceedings related to the Sandy Hook defamation judgments against him.
“So when it was up for bankruptcy nine days after the 2024 election, the two people to bid on it were Alex Jones’s proxy, probably his kid, and us,” Collins said.
The Onion won the auction, though Collins said Jones has continued appealing the process.
“We are stupid people who picked a fight with an awful man,” Collins joked. “But we’re almost there.”
Once the deal closes, Collins said The Onion plans to satirize conspiracy influencers and internet personalities across social media platforms.
“We’re going to start off going after all this stuff on your TikTok and Instagram account that you’re like, how is there not somebody making fun of this person?” Collins said. “We are going to make fun of that person.”
Comedy, he says, has become flatter—and The Onion wants writers for something else
Collins also used the moment to criticize the direction of mainstream comedy. “Comedy has devolved into racist roasts and nothing else and I’m just exhausted by it,” he said.
Part of The Onion’s strategy now, Collins said, is creating space for comedy writers and creators interested in different kinds of work—mentioning projects involving comedian Tim Heidecker.
He also addressed how the outlet is producing content, stressing that it does not rely on AI.
“We also do not use AI and you can tell,” Collins said. “The stank of AI is very profound right now and it’s deeply unpopular.”
A business story, but also a reaction to the media environment
For Collins, the shift isn’t just about product expansion and financial sustainability. It’s about how audiences feel in a tense political and media landscape.
“Success for us is really like, we want people to feel catharsis,” Collins said. “We want people to feel seen in this world where media has been totally captured by a bunch of people with some real weird perversions.”
That combination—an America-250 documentary in the pipeline. a courtroom-adjacent fight around InfoWars. and a pivot toward subscriptions and print—shows The Onion trying to make its next move less about headlines and more about endurance. Not just surviving the internet, but shaping what satire looks like when it has something new to target.
The Onion Ben Collins InfoWars Alex Jones bankruptcy Sandy Hook subscriptions YouTube subscribers documentary Birth of a Nation Jeff Lawson Twilio NBC News extremism misinformation AI-generated content TikTok Instagram
So wait they bought InfoWars?? That’s wild lol.
I don’t get it, The Onion is comedy and InfoWars was like conspiracy stuff. Making a documentary called Birth of a Nation sounds like they’re trying to rewrite history or something. Also “low-quality ads”?? isn’t that just like… most news sites?
“Birth of a Nation” for the 250th anniversary… wasn’t that already a movie back in the day that was racist? Or am I mixing it up. Either way, if they came from InfoWars money then how is it not still the same people behind it.
Fast Company summit blah blah, but why is this even happening? Like, I heard The Onion bought it, but I assumed it was for legal reasons or like a prank. And now they’re changing ads and making documentaries?? Sounds like they’re cleaning it up and calling it “urgent.” I mean, America’s 250th anniversary isn’t until later but sure, let’s start with misinformation 2.0.