What Is Alex Jones' Net Worth and Salary?
Alex Jones is an American far-right political extremist and conspiracy theorist who has a net worth of -$900 million. Alex Jones became nationally known as the host of "The Alex Jones Show," a radio talk show that he hosts out of Austin, Texas, and broadcasts from his website, Infowars. He has written books and sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of products through his website. His products range from "brain pills" to diet supplements to survivalist gear.
At his August 2022 defamation trial, Jones claimed his net worth was no more than $5 million. At that same trial, a financial forensic expert estimated that Alex and his companies were worth $135 – $270 million. At this trial, it was revealed that between 2015 and 2022, Jones' primary company, Infowars, averaged $53.2 million in annual gross revenue. A jury ordered Alex to pay his victims $49 million at this trial.
In October 2022, a jury in Connecticut ordered Jones to pay $965 million in defamation damages to the relatives of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting. A month later, a Connecticut judge upped the damages bill to $1.3 billion. After a third trial, his judgment total came to $1.5 billion. Over a several-year period after Sandy Hook, Jones repeated lies about the shooting, namely that the shooting was staged by the government as a plot to restrict Americans' access to guns. According to the Connecticut jury, Alex used those lies to drive traffic to his website and increase merchandise sales. The jury also ordered him to pay the plaintiff's attorney's fees.
In December 2023, Alex was forced to submit a more detailed list of current assets. According to this release, at this point, he controlled $13 million worth of assets, including $856,000 in bank accounts.
Earnings and Income
Over his career operating Infowars, Jones has undoubtedly earned tens of millions of dollars, perhaps as much as $100 million. Infowars is operated through an LLC called Free Speech Systems. According to Free Speech System's July 2022 bankruptcy filing, Jones' holding company paid $62 million in "member draws" in 2021 and 2022. The same filing also claimed that Alex is the only member of the LLC. In other words, one could presume that those $62 million worth of draws went to Jones personally. He would likely have to set aside roughly half for taxes, leaving him with around $30 million in net income.
According to other court filings, between 2018 and 2021 alone, Alex drew $18 million in dividends and income from Free Speech Systems LLC. Another court filing reportedly showed that in 2019, Jones' conglomerate of companies generated $76 million in gross revenue, much of it coming from merchandise sales.
After his lawyers accidentally leaked Jones' entire text history, we learned that during the 2018 CPAC conference, Infowars grossed $800,000 in a single DAY.
Separate court filings showed that Alex has spent $15 million on legal expenses in recent years. During those legal proceedings, Alex has claimed that a $2.5 million judgment would wipe him out financially, implying his total net worth was no more than roughly $2 million, which doesn't exactly line up with his earnings history.
Infowars and Personal Bankruptcies
In November 2021, Jones and his companies were found liable for defamation in a lawsuit brought by several families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting.
In April 2022, three companies that had formerly been linked to Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At the time of the filing, the three businesses claimed to have incurred $10 million in legal costs fighting his Sandy Hook defamation cases. Furthermore, a trust was also set up to serve as a vehicle to compensate people suing the various companies, and Jones transferred his equity in the LLCs to this trust. According to court filings, Alex contributed $750,000 personally to the trust to cover legal work related to the Chapter 11 filings and planned to contribute an additional $2 million worth of cash at some point.
On December 2, 2022, Jones filed for personal bankruptcy protection in Texas. In his filing, he listed $1 billion to $10 billion in liabilities owed to as many as 99 creditors. He listed $1 million to $10 million worth of total assets.
Defamation Damages
On August 3, 2022, a jury in Austin, Texas, ordered Alex to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages to the Sandy Hook family that won a previous defamation trial.
On August 5, 2022, the same Austin jury ordered Alex to pay an additional $45 million in punitive damages for a total of just under $50 million in total damages.
In October 2022, a Connecticut jury ordered him to pay 15 plaintiffs $965 million in damages.
In November 2022, a Connecticut judge tacked on an additional $473 million in damages, bringing his total defamation bill just for the Connecticut trials to $1.3 billion.
In December 2023, Alex offered to pay the families of Sandy Hook victims $55 million over ten years to settle his damages.
Early Life
Alex Jones was born on February 11th, 1974, in Dallas, Texas, and was raised in the suburb of Rockwell. He was later raised in Austin. His father is a dentist, and his mother is a homemaker. He graduated from Anderson High School in Austin in 1993. He then attended Austin Community College but dropped out.
Radio Career
Alex began his career in Austin working on a live call-in public access TV program and switched to radio in 1996, hosting a show named "The Final Edition" on KJFK. Ron Paul was a frequent guest on his show while he was running for Congress. In 1999, he tied with Shannon Burke in that year's poll of "Best Austin Talk Show Host," voted by the readers of the "Austin Chronicle." He was fired later that year from KJFK for refusing to broaden his topics and because his views made it difficult for the station to sell ads. Jones then began to broadcast his show via the web from his home.
In 2000, Alex was a Republican candidate for a State Representative in the Texas House District 48. He claimed to be running in order to "be a watchdog from the inside," but he withdrew from the race after a few weeks. In 2001, Jones' radio show was syndicated on about 100 stations. After the 9/11 attacks, Jones began to spout a conspiracy theory that the Bush administration was behind the attack and that it was an inside job. Several stations then dropped him as he became the face of the 9/11 "truther" cause. "The Alex Jones Show" is syndicated nationally by the Genesis Communications Network to more than 100 A.M. and F.M. stations in the U.S. In 2010, it attracted around 2 million listeners each week.
Other Ventures
Alex produced his first film, "America: Destroyed by Design," in 1998 and has since gone on to release roughly 20 additional documentary films. He has also released two books, 2002's "9-11: Descent Into Tyranny" and 2008's "The Answer to 1984 Is 1776".
Jones is the publisher and director of the InfoWars website, which receives around 10 million monthly visits. The website has been described as a fake news website and has been accused of spreading harmful conspiracy theories. At its peak, the site reportedly generated more than $20 million per year in revenue.
German magazine "Der Spiegel" uncovered in 2017 that two-thirds of Jones' income derives from sales of a range of his own products, which are marketed through the InfoWars website and advertising spots on his show. They include supplements, toothpaste, bulletproof vests, and other merchandise. In a 2017 segment on "Last Week Tonight," John Oliver stated that Jones spends nearly a quarter of his on-air time promoting products sold on his website, many of which purport solutions to medical and economic problems claimed to be caused by the conspiracy theories he promotes on his show.
Alex's antics continued during the COVID-19 pandemic, and he was issued a cease and desist from the Attorney General of New York on March 12, 2020, after he claimed with no evidence that the products he sold were an effective treatment for COVID-19. The FDA got involved in April 2020, and Jones was warned that the government could seize and fine him for continuing to sell the products.
In 2023, he launched a subscription-based podcast called "Alex Jones Live," which was put on hold shortly after it began due to the Sandy Hook case.
(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Views and Controversies
Jones is known for his extremely controversial beliefs about subjects ranging from the Oklahoma City bombing, the moon landing, 9/11, Sandy Hook, Obama, Hillary Clinton, white genocide, and anti-vaccination. He believes many acts of terror were "inside jobs," meaning the US government was involved. Alex believes that climate change is a hoax made up by the World Bank to control the global economy through a carbon tax. In February 2018, Jones was accused by former employees of sexual harassment, anti-black racism, and antisemitic behavior.
In July 2018, YouTube removed InfoWars videos citing child endangerment and hate speech. Later that year, Stitcher Radio removed all of his podcasts, citing harassment, and Facebook, Apple, YouTube, and Spotify removed all content created by Jones and InfoWars for policy violations. YouTube removed any channels associated with InfoWars, including the "Alex Jones Channel." Later that week, Vimeo removed all of Jones' videos due to discriminatory and hateful content. His accounts were also removed from Pinterest, Mailchimp, and LinkedIn. The next month, Alex was permanently banned from Twitter and Periscope after using the platforms to berate CNN reporter Oliver Darcy. The InfoWars app was also removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play. Jones was banned from using PayPal for his business transactions. In May 2019, he was banned from using Facebook and Instagram.
Personal Life
Alex was married to Kelly Jones from 2007 to 2015. They have three children. In 2017, Kelly Jones sought sole custody of their children due to her ex-husband's bizarre behavior, claiming that he was not a stable person and that she felt concerned for their children's well-being. His attorney tried to pass his behavior off as describing him to be "playing a character" much like a "performance artist." Jones has long denied playing a character on his show. Kelly was awarded full custody, and Alex maintains visitation rights.
Jones married Erika Wulff in 2017, and they have one child together. Alex's son, Rex Jones, has worked for InfoWars.
In March 2020, Jones was arrested and charged with drunk driving in Texas. The Travis County jail in Austin confirmed that he was charged with a DWI, a class B misdemeanor. He was booked but released four hours later on a "personal recognizance bond."
Real Estate
Alex lives in a mansion located within a gated community in Austin, Texas. The home is worth $2 – $2.5 million. It was reported that Jones also owns four additional properties in Texas, bringing his real estate portfolio to a worth of an estimated $7.5 million.
