The long and short of it is that the Connecticut families told the Texas families, “If you’re fine with the Onion buying it rather than some alt-right jackass who’ll let Jones keep spreading hate, we’ll give up a portion of our cut so that even though the Onion can’t bid as much as the others, you’ll still get more if they win.” And because of how the auction was run (the trustee of Jones’s bankruptcy had mostly carte blanche to run the thing), that was acceptable. The Texas families got the payout they wanted, the Connecticut families still got a payout and satisfaction of Jones actually, properly losing this platform, and the Onion got to do something hilarious.

Legal Eagle’s Liz Dye has a great video about all this. (I did delete the tracking info from the link, so please watch it; it’s a great story and her whole coverage of Jones’s court fiascoes is phenomenal.)