X claims ownership of Infowars’ account to block sale to Onion

Elon Musk’s X claimed control of the Infowars social media account this week, arguing it owns everything on its platform.

In a court filing Monday, X argued that it owned the accounts hosted on its platform and that the accounts couldn’t be sold or transferred to a third party without the consent of the company. 

“X Corp.’s terms of service make clear that it owns the X Accounts, as the TOS is explicit that X Corp. merely grants its users a nonexclusive license to use their accounts,” the filing reads. 

The filing is in response to an ongoing legal battle over the ownership of Infowars, the conservative news site. Infowars founder and owner Alex Jones was forced to auction off all of Infowars’ assets this month after being ordered to pay over $1.5 billion to the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting.

Satirical news site The Onion purchased Infowars this month with assistance from the Sandy Hook families. The sale, which included the Infowars brand, mailing lists and social media accounts, was halted by a judge shortly after. 

The Infowars X account is still active and has significant reach on the platform, with over 638,000 followers. 

In the court filing, X conceded that while users don’t own their X accounts, they own the content in individual posts. X also agreed that bankruptcy courts determining ownership of social media accounts is uncharted legal territory. 

If X successfully blocks the Infowars account transfer, it would not be the first time Mr. Musk has appropriated an account on his platform. Earlier this year, Mr. Musk took control of the @America account to promote Donald Trump’s presidential bid.