The Onion is known for fake headlines, but this one is real.

The satirical news site has won an auction to take over right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' media empire – with the financial backing of several Sandy Hook Elementary shooting victims' families.

But the move is unlikely to silence Jones, who has already resurfaced on new platforms. And Jones' allies plan to object to the sale before it's finalized.

A defiant Jones railed against Sandy Hook families just moments before a bankruptcy trustee shut down his Infowars platforms Thursday morning.

"They're pulling the plug right now. They're about to turn us off right now," Jones said in a live broadcast. "They just live off me and stalk me and claim I'm talking about them, and all of this, and just drama queen and everywhere and show trials."

A Waterbury court ordered Jones to pay eight families nearly $1.5 billion after he claimed the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax. Victims' parents told jurors they suffered years of threats from Jones' followers.

"He was looking at me and he said how do you f—king sleep at night, you f—ing piece of s—t?", testified Robbie Parker, whose 6-year-old daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 mass shooting.

A judge ordered Jones' assets auctioned off after he declared bankruptcy. If the sale is approved, The Onion could acquire the Infowars website, social media accounts, studio in Texas, trademarks and video archive.

Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion's parent company, Global Tetrahedron, told the Associated Press that it will relaunch the Infowars website in January with satire aimed at conspiracy theorists and right-wing personalities, as well as educational information about gun violence prevention from the group Everytown for Gun Safety. Collins would not disclose the sale price.

"We thought it would be a very funny joke if we bought this thing, probably one of the better jokes we've ever told," Collins said. "The [Sandy Hook] families decided they would effectively join our bid, back our bid, to try to get us over the finish line. Because by the end of the day, it was us or Alex Jones, who could either continue this website unabated, basically unpunished, for what he's done to these families over the years, or we could make a dumb, stupid website, and we decided to do the second thing."

How did The Onion come up with the money? The Sandy Hook families waived part of their legal judgment to fund the winning bid, their attorney said.

"The Onion was interested in purchasing them and we were very interested in making sure that Alex Jones no longer had a perch from which he could hurt other families or hurt our families," said Chris Mattei, who is also a former federal prosecutor. "The Connecticut families always said from the very beginning that this has nothing to do with money. It has to do with accountability and justice."

Infowars' allies are fighting the takeover.

The Onion was selected over one other bidder – a $3.5 million offer from a Jones-affiliated company called First United American Companies LLC, the bankruptcy trustee revealed in court Thursday afternoon.

During an emergency status conference, First United questioned whether the Sandy Hook families are allowed to waive part of their judgement to fund the winning bid. Lawyers for the company also said they had expected a round of bidding to be held Wednesday where prospective buyers could outbid each other. They alleged that the trustee overseeing the auction changed the process only days before and instead opened only sealed bids that were submitted.

Judge Christopher Lopez also raised concerns about the bidding process, and said he would schedule a hearing for next week where both offers would be made public.

"I personally don't care who wins," Lopez said. "I just care about the process and transparency."

During his morning broadcast, Jones claimed the trustee acted too quickly.

"They're shutting us down even without a court order. This morning, the Connecticut Democrats with The Onion newspaper bought us. They asked, 'Did they outbid?' They said, 'Well, it was competitive.' So they changed all the bidding rules -- made it secret two days ago. I had a bad feeling; I told you that."

The Onion's takeover is unlikely to silence Jones. By Thursday afternoon, he was broadcasting from a different location on new platforms.

"Gigantic, ginormous, massive audiences," Jones promised. "We'll have 100 million people watching by tonight."

But no matter where Jones resurfaces, Mattei said the Sandy Hook families still have a claim to any money he makes.

"We were never going to be able to prevent him from having a microphone. That's not what the law allows," he said. "So all of his complaints about being silenced are obviously ridiculous."