Judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion, Alex Jones says
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(NEW YORK) — A bankruptcy judge rejected the sale of Infowars to The Onion, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said during his podcast on Tuesday.
“We are deeply disappointed in today’s decision but The Onion will continue to seek a resolution that helps the Sandy Hook families receive a positive outcome for the horror they endured,” The Onion CEO Ben Collins said on social media.
“We will also continue to seek a path towards purchasing InfoWars in the coming weeks,” Collins’ statement continued.
Jones accused The Onion and Sandy Hook Elementary School families of “collusive bidding” and asked a bankruptcy court judge to halt the sale of his Infowars platform in November.
Jones, who defamed the Sandy Hook families by calling the 2012 massacre a hoax and the parents of the 20 first graders actors, called The Onion’s winning $1.75 million bid “sheer nonsense” because it’s half of what the losing bidder offered.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — As former President Donald Trump declared victory in the U.S. presidential election early Wednesday, shares of his media company, Trump Media & Technology, surged about 34% to about $45.49 in pre-market trading.
With U.S. markets yet to open, early indicators appeared to show Wall Street’s bullish view of a second term for Trump. As votes were still being, Dow futures were up, the U.S. dollar was strengthening and international markets were mixed.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures had surged about 2.9% by 6 a.m. in New York, having risen briskly from the 1.7% gain they had logged when former President Donald Trump took the stage in Florida at about 2 a.m.
S&P 500 futures traded up about 2.2% early Wednesday, while futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq market were up about 1.7%. Shares of Tesla, the electric-vehicle company headed by Trump ally Elon Musk, spiked about 14.5% in pre-market trades.
Trump owns a 57% stake in the Trump Media, which trades under the DJT ticker and is the parent of social media startup Truth Social. The company late Tuesday reported its third quarterly loss since going public in March.
Markets in the U.S. had surged on Tuesday, led by the Nasdaq’s 1.4% rise.
As Trump walked onto the stage in Florida early Wednesday, the dollar was strengthening. The U.S. Dollar Index traded up about 1.4% at 104.75, touching a level it hadn’t seen since early August. Yields on 10-year and 2-year Treasury bonds had also climbed overnight.
Trading in Asia was mixed Wednesday as international markets digested the election results. Japan’s Nikkei closed up 2.61% for the day, while Shanghai closed nearly flat, slipping just 0.09%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell, dropping 2.23% by the close after opening below Tuesday’s close.
The United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 Index climbed early Wednesday, rising about 1.43% moments after open. Germany’s DAX saw a similar rise, climbing about 1.3% in morning trading.
(NEW YORK) — In a letter to shareholders, Warren Buffett revealed that he would be donating more than $1.1 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock to four of his family’s foundations. In addition, he detailed plans for distributing his wealth after his death.
Buffett, the CEO and Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, reflected in the letter released Monday on his life and how long he has lived.
“Father time always wins. But he can be fickle – indeed unfair and even cruel – sometimes ending life at birth or soon thereafter while, at other times, waiting a century or so before paying a visit,” Buffett said. “To date, I’ve been very lucky, but, before long, he will get around to me.”
Buffet, 94, said he and his late wife, Susan Buffett, always expected she would outlive him and be the one to distribute his fortune.
But when Susan died in 2004, with a fortune of $3 billion and 96% of that going to the foundation, she left $10 million to each of their three children.
That was the largest gift they had given them, Buffet said.
Buffett believes that parents should support their children but do so in a meaningful way.
“Our belief that hugely wealthy parents should leave their children enough so they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing,” Buffett wrote in his letter to shareholders.
Buffett explains that he “never wished to create a dynasty or pursue any plan that extended beyond the children.” He also admits that while he and Susan encouraged the children to get involved in philanthropy, that the children weren’t ready to handle the wealth Berkshire stocks had generated in light of their mother’s death.
Since the 2006 lifetime pledge Buffett made and later expanded, the children have dramatically increased their philanthropic activities, Buffet said. And now Buffett is entrusting them fully.
“The children have now more than justified our hopes and, upon my death, will have full responsibility for gradually distributing all of my Berkshire holdings,” Buffet said. “These now account for 99 1⁄2% of my wealth.”
Buffett has described his wealth and age as “lucky” but he also sees a downside to it, he said.
“There is, however, a downside to my good fortune in avoiding his notice. The expected life span of my children has materially diminished since the 2006 pledge. They are now 71, 69 and 66.”
With his children getting older, the family has also designated three potential successors, Buffett said.
“Each is well known to my children and makes sense to all of us. They are also somewhat younger than my children,” Buffett said.
Buffett also reflects on his “lucky streak” dating back to 1930 when he was born as white male in the United States. He mentions his two sisters being promised by the 19th Amendment to be treated equally with males. And he admits to growing in a country that has not yet fulfilled its promises elsewhere.
“In 1930, however, I emerged in a country that hadn’t yet gotten around to fulfilling its earlier aspirations,” Buffett said. “Aided by Billie Jean King, Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and countless others, things began changing in the 1970s.”
Favored by male status, Buffet said he had confidence he would become rich one day. But he never expected it to be the way it is, he said.
“But in no way did I, or anyone else, dream of the fortunes that have become attainable in America during the last few decades,” Buffett said. “Billions became the new millions.”
(NEW YORK) — Facebook plans to replace its fact-checkers with “community notes,” a move that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said would allow the social network to return “to our roots around free expression.”
“We’re replacing fact checkers with Community Notes, simplifying our policies and focusing on reducing mistakes,” Zuckerberg said on Tuesday. “Looking forward to this next chapter.”
The changes, which will also be in place for Instagram and Threads, will lift restrictions “on some topics that are part of mainstream discourse” and will focus the company’s “enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations,” Joel Kaplan, chief global affairs officer, said in a blog post.
Meta executives sought in their statements to tie the update to what they described as a sea change in public discourse accompanying the rise of President-elect Donald Trump’s brand of politics.
Fact-checkers who were put in place in the wake of Trump’s 2016 election have proven to be “too politically biased” and have destroyed “more trust than they’ve created,” particularly in the United States, Zuckerberg said.
“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg said.
The decision also follows Zuckerberg recent meeting with Trump at the president-elect’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. And Meta is donating to Trump’s presidential inaugural committee, marking a first for the company.
The shift in policy mirrors a series of updates that Elon Musk — a Trump ally — made after purchasing rival social network Twitter, which he’s since rebranded as X.
Kaplan on Tuesday praised the approach Musk has taken, saying X under its new owner has empowered its “community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context.”
“We think this could be a better way of achieving our original intention of providing people with information about what they’re seeing — and one that’s less prone to bias,” Kaplan said.
As the company’s fact-checking capabilities have grown, they have expanded “to the point where we are making too many mistakes,” which in turn has frustrated many of the social networks’ users, Kaplan said.
“Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in ‘Facebook jail,’ and we are often too slow to respond when they do,” he said.
ABC News’ Michael Kreisel, Zunaira Zaki and Chris Donovan contributed to this report.
