Former Infowars editor recalls Alex Jones threatening to ban laughter, firing a gun at employees

Working for Infowars' Alex Jones is about as nutty an experience as you'd expect, according to one former employee.

Josh Owens, an ex-video editor for Infowars, has written a piece in The New York Times Magazine describing bizarre behind-the-scenes details about working for the fringe conspiracy theorist, such as that Jones allegedly once dumped a bag containing an employee's pet fish in the trash, "wildly" stabbed a moldy water cooler, ripped blinds off the wall, yelled at employees to hit him, regularly removed his shirt, and "threatened to send out a memo banning laughter in the office," with his reasoning apparently being that "we're at war."

Owens also describes an incident in which Jones allegedly took employees to a private ranch in Texas to shoot guns and "after eating a few handfuls of jalapeño chips, he picked up an AR-15 and accidentally fired it in my direction." A bullet "hit the ground about 10 feet away from me," Owens says, prompting one employee to go off on Jones, who "claimed he had intentionally fired the gun as a joke — as if this were any better."

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Throughout the piece, Owens expresses regret for working for Jones, especially because he recalls how doing so involved making up stories to fit Jones' narrative. "The information did not meet our expectations, so we made it up, preying on the vulnerable and feeding the prejudices and fears of Jones's audience," Owens writes, adding that "we ignored certain facts, fabricated others and took situations out of context to fit our narrative."

Jones responded to the piece by telling Mediaite it's "a compendium of lies, disinformation, and half-truths."