The Onion Is Sold by G/O Media

G/O Media announced on Thursday that it had sold The Onion, a satirical news site, to a group of digital media veterans.

The Onion, which started in 1988 in Wisconsin as a weekly satirical newspaper and later became a website, is known for its parodies of current events. For the last decade, it has republished the same headline after nearly every mass shooting: “‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”

In an email to G/O Media staff that was obtained by The New York Times, Jim Spanfeller, the chief executive, said the company was “undergoing an extensive review of our portfolio with the intention of coring down to our leading sites in terms of audience and revenues.” He said G/O Media had agreed to sell to “a new Chicago-based firm called Global Tetrahedron.”

“This company is made up of four digital media veterans with a profound love for The Onion and comedy-based content,” Mr. Spanfeller wrote. “The site’s new owners have agreed to keep The Onion’s entire staff intact and in Chicago, something we insisted be part of the deal.”

The name Global Tetrahedron is, in true Onion fashion, a winking reference to a sinister fictional company featured in the book “Our Dumb Century,” which was written by The Onion’s staff and published in 1999.

The real-life Global Tetrahedron is owned by Jeff Lawson, a co-founder and former chief executive of the technology communications company Twilio. The chief executive is Ben Collins, who was a senior reporter at NBC News until recently. Leila Brillson, a former TikTok executive, and Danielle Strle, previously at Tumblr, round out the executive team.