Alex Jones

Lore & Background

Alexander Emerick Jones was born on February 11, 1974, in Dallas, Texas, and was raised in Rockwall, 25 miles east of Dallas. His father was a dentist from Austin and his mother was a homemaker. The family moved to Austin in Jones's second year of high school. He attended Anderson High School, where he played football and graduated in 1993. After graduating, Jones briefly attended Austin Community College before dropping out. As a teenager, he read None Dare Call It Conspiracy, a book by John Birch Society conspiracy theorist Gary Allen, which alleged global bankers controlled American politics; Jones described it as 'the easiest-to-read primer on The New World Order.'

The Waco siege at the Branch Davidian complex near Waco, Texas, ended in April 1993 with a substantial fire and a significant number of fatalities. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, these events 'only confirmed his belief in the inexorable progress of unseen, malevolent forces.' Jones began hosting a call-in show on public access television in Austin. The Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995, was intended by perpetrator Timothy McVeigh as a response to the federal involvement in the Waco siege. Jones accused the federal government of having caused it, and did not believe the bombing had been the responsibility of McVeigh and his associate Terry Nichols. In 1998, Jones organized a successful campaign to build a new Branch Davidian church as a memorial to those who died during the 1993 fire.

Jones began his career in Austin working on a live, call-in format public-access cable television program. In 1996, he switched to radio, hosting a show named The Final Edition on KJFK (98.9 FM). Influenced by radio host William Cooper, Jones began to broadcast about the New World Order conspiracy theory. In 1999, he founded with his wife, Kelly Jones, the website InfoWars, initially as a mail-order outlet for the sale of their conspiracy-oriented videos. Over time, InfoWars became a prominent fake news website. After his firing from KJFK-FM, Jones began to broadcast his own show by Internet connection from his home. On the day of the 9/11 attacks, Jones said on his radio show there was a '98 percent chance this was a government-orchestrated controlled bombing.'

Reader's Guide

Alex Jones is significant as a far-right political commentator and conspiracy theorist whose media platforms, particularly Infowars and Banned.Video, have reached millions of listeners and viewers, promoting fake news and conspiracy theories. His allegations that the U.S. government concealed or falsified information about events such as the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the Parkland high school shooting, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the September 11 attacks have had profound real-world consequences. In October 2022, juries in Connecticut and Texas awarded a total of $1.487 billion in damages from Jones to a first responder and families of victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, after the plaintiffs alleged that Jones's lies led to them being threatened and harassed for years. Jones filed for personal bankruptcy on December 2, 2022, and the U.S. Supreme Court later rejected his appeal without comment. Jones also supported Donald Trump's 2016 presidential bid and his re-election, and was a speaker at the rally on January 6, 2021, that preceded the attack on the US Capitol. His legacy includes providing a platform for white nationalists and neo-Nazis, and his influence on the spread of disinformation in American politics.

Did You Know?

• Jones tied with Shannon Burke for 'Best Austin Talk Radio Host' in 1999, as voted by readers of The Austin Chronicle.
• In 2010, The Alex Jones Show attracted around two million listeners each week.
• Jones's syndicator, Genesis Communications Network, announced its shutdown effective May 4, 2024, citing financial losses.
• From September 2015 to the end of 2018, the InfoWars store made $165 million in sales, according to court filings.