Houston, Texas - A judge has pushed the pause button on The Onion's acquisition of Infowars over concerns that the satirical news site might not have been the highest bidder at the auction.

Alex Jones' Infowars intellectual property was picked up by The Onion on Thursday, after the far-right shock-jock was forced to sell the company to pay nearly $1.5 billion in legal damages to the families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, whom he defamed and tormented for uears.

Judge Christopher Lopez on Thursday said that he was concerned that a deal struck by the Sandy Hook families to forgo some of their money to help pay off Jones' other creditors cast doubt over whether The Onion's bid was genuinely the largest in value.

The issue is whether a round of bidding that was skipped would have allowed for a higher bid to emerge.

"We're all going to evidentiary hearing, and I'm going to figure out exactly what happened," Judge Lopez said, per the Associated Press. "No one should feel comfortable with the results of this auction."

The precise monetary value of the purchasing bid has not been disclosed by either the court or The Onion. While the hearing is expected to happen next week, an exact date has not yet been set.

Alex Jones took to his show on Infowars after the sale and claimed that the auction was rigged, saying that he hoped the judge would stop the sale.

"This was a auction that didn’t happen, with a bid that was lower, with money that wasn’t real," Jones said.