Cards Against Humanity bought humor site ClickHole and turned over ownership to its employees

Max Temkin Ben Hantoot Cards Against Humanity

Cards Against Humanity bought satire website ClickHole from G/O Media, as first reported by BuzzFeed News.
As part of the all-cash deal, ClickHole's employees will become majority-owners of the site, according to BuzzFeed.
The card game company will support ClickHole financially, but will let it operate independently.
ClickHole has had multiple owners since the site was started by The Onion in 2014 — most recently, the same private equity firm that has battled with writers at Deadspin over editorial independence.
"ClickHole's treasure is beautiful and not for sale. It consists of gold, jewels, and other priceless and gorgeous gems and metals. For almost a year, ClickHole's treasure was on vacation, but now it's back," a spokesperson for Cards Against Humanity told Business Insider.
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Cards Against Humanity, the company behind the popular card game, has purchased humor website ClickHole from G/O Media, as first reported by BuzzFeed News on Monday.

The all-cash deal will involve ClickHole's employees becoming majority owners of the site, which will be financially supported by Cards Against Humanity but retain editorial independence, according to BuzzFeed. The Onion, which created ClickHole in 2014, will reportedly remain part of G/O Media.

"ClickHole's treasure is beautiful and not for sale. It consists of gold, jewels, and other priceless and gorgeous gems and metals. For almost a year, ClickHole's treasure was on vacation, but now it's back," a spokesperson for Cards Against Humanity told Business Insider.

G/O Media did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

G/O Media, which includes media properties including Gizmodo, Deadspin, and ClickHole's parent, The Onion, is wholly owned by private equity firm Great Hill Partners, after passing hands from previous owner Univision in 2019.

Under CEO Jim Spanfeller, appointed by Great Hill Partners to lead G/O Media, the company has faced unrest by employees over its perceived lack of commitment to editorial independence, eventually leading to mass resignations by writers at popular sports site Deadspin.

"Our goal is to take some of the pressure off of them so they can shake some of these managerial shakes [sic] ups they've had and just focus on making amazing comedy," Cards Against Humanity cofounder Max Temkin told BuzzFeed.

On a final, historical note, Elon Musk himself once unsuccessfully tried to buy The Onion and Clickhole in 2014, before ultimately launching an aborted humor project himself called "Thud!" In 2018, after news of Musk's previous interest in the company was first made public, ClickHole published a satirical story called "I Did Everything I Could To Buy ClickHole, But Their Editorial Integrity Won Out Over My Billion-Dollar Offers, And I Respect Them Even More For That (By Elon Musk)."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why it's so hard for planes to land on water