Elon Musk Rushes to Help Man He Once Said He Had “No Mercy” For

Elon Musk is butting his head into the auction of Alex Jones’s InfoWars.

Satirical outlet The Onion purchased InfoWars’ parent company last month for $1.75 million in conjunction with the families of children murdered during the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, to whom Jones lost a $1.5 billion lawsuit for repeatedly claiming that the mass shooting was a hoax.

That sale included InfoWars’ websites, its studio equipment, its dietary supplements, its branding—as well as its heavily trafficked social media accounts.

The deal appeared to be cut-and-dried, but on Monday, Musk alerted the court that he would not accept the ownership transfer of InfoWars’ X accounts. In filings with a Texas bankruptcy court, X argued that the sale violated its terms of service, which prevent the sale of its accounts, writing that the company objects “to any proposed sale or other purported transfer of any account used by Jones or FSS that is maintained on the X platform (‘X’).”

“Elon Musk, hands down, is a hero,” Jones previously said in a video message posted to his account, praising the world’s richest man for lending him a hand in maintaining his connection to the brand.

It is, nonetheless, a stark reversal of how Musk felt about Jones’s social media presence in the wake of his court judgments. In 2022, shortly after Jones lost his lawsuit to the Sandy Hook families, Musk said he wouldn’t allow Jones back on his social media platform, paraphrasing the Bible in his explanation that Jones deserved “no mercy” for using the “deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”

Meanwhile, social media attorneys have been stunned by the intervention, noting that this appears to be the first instance in which a social media company has gotten involved in a legal dispute over account ownership.

“This is the first time I’ve seen a social media platform arguing to a court that no one can transfer ownership during a dispute over who owns an account because they will just switch it off,” Toby Butterfield, a professor of social media law at Columbia University Law School, told CNN.

Jones repeatedly claimed that the 2012 shooting that left 20 first graders and six teachers dead was a front to lure voters toward gun control policies.

In the run-up to the auction last month, Jones had appeared to be under the impression that “good guys” on the right would buy his fringe network, though he did not reveal who they were. Several groups expressed interest in InfoWars assets, including a coalition of liberal and anti-disinformation watchdog groups, according to The Daily Beast, as well as some of Jones’s own supporters, such as Donald Trump ally Roger Stone. The sale, however, has effectively crushed what was arguably Jones’s most successful endeavor while marking the beginning of his descent into irrelevancy.

Jones is currently working to appeal the sale.

Representative Jamie Raskin launched a campaign Monday to replace Representative Jerry Nadler as ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.

In a letter to his colleagues, the Maryland Democrat warned that they were in “the fight of our lives.” Raskin asked for the party to support his burgeoning bid, explaining that “the stakes have gone way up since the election” as “this time the MAGA movement has not only a trifecta but a complicit Supreme Court waiting in the wings and a dominant media propaganda system parroting all the lies.”

“House Democrats must stand in the breach to defend the principles and institutions of constitutional democracy. That is our historic assignment now. We dare not fail,” Raskin wrote.

“After a week consulting most of our Colleagues and engaging in serious introspection about where we are, I am running today to be your Ranking Member on the House Judiciary Committee in the 119th Congress,” he wrote. “This is where we will wage our front-line defense of the freedoms and rights of the people, the integrity of the Department of Justice and the FBI, and the security of our most precious birthright possessions: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the rule of law, and democracy itself.”

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was among several House Democrats who spent days urging a rather reluctant Raskin to challenge the 77-year-old Nadler, a pillar of the House’s older Democratic guard. Democrats have reportedly grown concerned that Nadler wouldn’t be as meaningfully effective in quashing Donald Trump’s abuses of power as Raskin, who headed the House’s investigation into the deadly January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Democrats and Republicans alike would prefer Chris Wray to continue as FBI director and not be replaced by the controversial Kash Patel.

President-elect Donald Trump announced that he plans to replace Wray—whom he appointed in 2017—with election-denying, far-right loyalist Kash Patel. FBI directors have a 10-year tenure unless they are fired or resign. And most people in Congress seem to think Wray has done a fine job and deserves to fulfill his term until 2027.

South Dakota Republican Mike Rounds called Wray a “very good man” and had no issues with how Wray led the FBI. Other Republicans, however, like Senator Chuck Grassley, have been quick to fall in line behind Trump, whose primary beef with Wray was that he didn’t investigate Joe Biden for election fraud in 2020.

“Chris Wray has failed at fundamental duties of [FBI Director]. He’s showed disdain for [congressional] oversight & hasn’t lived up to his promises It’s time 2 chart a new course 4 TRANSPARENCY +ACCOUNTABILITY at FBI,” Grassley wrote on X. “Kash Patel must prove to Congress he will reform &restore public trust in FBI.”

Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin offered his own take, telling NBC that Wray had “demonstrated too much independence and objectivity in the job for Donald Trump, who wants much more of a personal loyalist in the position. And that’s why he’s gone to Kash Patel.”

Patel is a staunch Trump advocate with a thirst for political revenge, and he’s made that very clear. To fire Wray and hire Patel would just be another shameless effort on Trump’s part to surround himself with highly unqualified yet deeply vindictive yes-men. It seems to be working.

Karoline Leavitt, who Donald Trump has chosen as his White House press secretary, once criticized the Capitol insurrection and reposted praise for then–Vice President Mike Pence certifying the 2020 presidential election, before later deleting the social media posts.

CNN reports that Leavitt made two posts on X (formerly Twitter) after the January 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol: one video of Pence calling the attacks “a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol” as he presided over the election’s certification in Congress, and another post calling a Capitol police officer who led rioters away from members of Congress “a hero.”

At the time, Leavitt, then 23, had just left Trump’s White House press office and accepted a job working for Representative Elise Stefanik. Later, despite her criticism of the January 6 riots, she unsuccessfully ran for Congress in New Hampshire in 2022, denying that Trump lost the presidential election.

In two separate interviews in 2021, one with OANN and one with New Hampshire talk radio, Leavitt denied that Trump lost the 2020 election.

“I do believe that if we were to audit all 50 states in this country, there is absolutely no way we would find Joe Biden legitimately won 81 million votes,” Leavitt told New Hampshire’s WKXL. “I fundamentally do not believe that, and I will tell you the majority of voters on the Republican side do not believe that either. We feel as though this election was taken away from us.”

After her 2022 loss, Leavitt went on to work for Trump’s PAC and later his presidential campaign, becoming its national press secretary. At 27, she’ll be the youngest White House press secretary ever, but far from the only Republican (and Trump staffer) to go from criticizing the Capitol insurrection to denying that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. But that won’t matter to Trump, who sees immediate loyalty as the most important thing. As long as Leavitt does what Trump wants in her new role, she will have his approval.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, Donald Trump’s pick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, could face many different and serious conflicts with his business interests if he is confirmed to run the agency.

The Washington Post reports that Oz, who has a long history of promoting questionable medical cures and diet solutions, also has business ties to pharmaceutical companies such as Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of Ozempic. If Oz is confirmed to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, his decisions would have considerable effects on these businesses.

Oz founded Sharecare, a digital health and media company, with Oprah Winfrey and WebMD founder Jeff Arnold in 2009. Novo Nordisk was a client of Sharecare. Being in charge of Medicare and Medicaid, two taxpayer-funded health care programs, would call into question whether he’d be affected by lobbying efforts from Big Pharma, particularly over weight-loss drugs like Ozempic.

Oz has repeatedly touted the benefits of Ozempic on his TV show as well as his website. He has also promoted Wegovy, another similar drug. Both are manufactured by Novo Nordisk, and the company has been lobbying the federal government to cover the drugs through Medicare and Medicaid.

The Biden administration proposed covering the weight-loss drugs last week, which raises the question of whether the incoming Trump administration will do the same. Such a move would raise a conflict within the administration between Oz and Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has attacked pharmaceutical companies for selling drugs like Ozempic.

“They’re counting on selling it to Americans because we’re so stupid and so addicted to drugs,” Kennedy told Fox News in October.

There’s also Oz’s long history of touting questionable medical cures and diet solutions, which undercuts his medical credibility and even resulted in a congressional hearing. Will Oz’s quackery, as well as his business interests, affect his confirmation? In the Trump administration, after all, conflicts of interest are routinely ignored when money is involved.