FULL CLAIM: Alex Jones was fined 150 billion dollars for warning about crimes related to COVID-19; Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged such crimes and wasn’t fined
REVIEW
An Instagram post from August 2024 claimed that Alex Jones was fined 150 billion dollars for warning about crimes related to COVID-19. However, this claim is baseless, as we’ll show below.
The post was published by political commentator Brandon Tatum on Instagram, who has more than 1.4 million followers on the platform. Tatum, formerly a police officer, now uses his online presence to promote products from The Wellness Company, a business selling supplements that’s headed by several high-profile spreaders of COVID-19 and vaccine disinformation, such as Peter McCullough, Harvey Risch, and James Thorpe.
The post showed a picture of Alex Jones with a caption that he had warned about “Covid crimes” and was fined more than 150 billion dollars. This was juxtaposed against a picture of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, with a caption claiming that Zuckerberg had apologized—and thus acknowledged—committing “Covid crimes”, yet hadn’t been fined.
Alex Jones is known for propagating disinformation and conspiracy theories, commonly propagated on his outlet InfoWars. He was banned from major social media platforms in 2018 for abusive behavior and hate speech. X/Twitter CEO Elon Musk later reinstated Jones’ account, in spite of his promise that he wouldn’t do so. Jones remains banned from other platforms.
In spite of the post’s allegations, we couldn’t find evidence that Jones received a 150-billion-dollar fine for warning against any so-called “Covid crimes”. For context, 150 billion is a significantly large amount, with only seven people in the world with net worth higher than that. The post didn’t provide information about these crimes, nor did it define what it meant by “Covid crime”.
While there’s no evidence of a Covid-related fine for Jones, there is evidence that Jones tried to profit from the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, Jones received letters from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and from the New York General Attorney to stop selling unproven COVID-19 cures, such as anti-COVID toothpaste, on his website.
Jones was hit with one substantial fine, but it’s unrelated to COVID-19. He was ordered to pay 1.5 billion dollars in damages and fees to the families of the victims of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Jones baselessly claimed that the shooting, which left twenty children and six adults dead, was a hoax organized to push an anti-gun agenda.
The claim that Zuckerberg acknowledged “Covid crimes” also lacks supporting evidence. However, this claim may be a reference to Zuckerberg’s recent communication expressing regret at having taken down some COVID-19 related content from his platforms. He alleged that Meta had done so under pressure from the White House.
In response, the White House defended its action, stating:
“Our position has been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present.”
Thus, there is no evidence of any “Covid crimes” by Meta or Zuckerberg himself.
In summary, the claim is baseless. Zuckerberg didn’t acknowledge “Covid crimes”, a term that Tatum’s post used without defining or explaining what these alleged crimes were. Jones received a fine of 1.5 billion dollars for defaming families of the Sandy Hook shooting, but there’s no evidence he was fined for warning about “Covid crimes”.
