Mike Lindell

My Pillow

Lindell invented My Pillow, a pillow filled with pieces of shredded foam that interlock, in 2004.[20] Lindell grew the business into a Minnesota manufacturing company.[21][22]

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) revoked accreditation of My Pillow in 2017, lowering its rating to an F based on a pattern of complaints by consumers. The BBB cited a buy one, get one free offer that became a continuous offer and therefore the normal price of the product, not a sale price or free offer.[23] Lindell said, "Naturally, I am terribly disappointed by the BBB's decision."[23]

Lindell named his son Darren as the company's chief operating officer in 2020, citing his own possible future political ambitions.[24]

Some major retailers stopped carrying My Pillow products in 2021. Lindell suggested this was a result of his claims relating to the 2020 United States presidential election results, although outlets like Kohl's and Bed Bath & Beyond have said it was due to market research and low customer demand.[25][26] In July 2023, MyPillow had auctioned off equipment and subleased some of their manufacturing space after more retailers, including Walmart and Slumberland Furniture, stopped retailing My Pillow products.[27]

In September 2024, Lindell faced controversy when MyPillow announced a sale of their classic pillow for a price of $14.88, which critics have noted is a common Nazi dog whistle combining references to the Fourteen Words and a Nazi chant. Numerous white supremacist accounts praised MyPillow and Mike Lindell in response. Lindell has denied that there was any hidden meaning behind the price.[28]

Media enterprises

Lindell operates two web sites under Mike Lindell Media Corporation: LindellTV.com, formerly Frank or FrankSpeech), focused on video streaming, and the social network Vocl.com, formerly FrankSocial.

Lindell detailed plans for Vocl, an alt-tech social media platform that he had been developing for several months, in March 2021. He described the site as a cross between YouTube and Twitter that would be different from Gab and Parler. A dispute from a company that owned a web site called Vocal led Lindell to rename his site Frank.[29] Frank launched on the domain frankspeech.com on April 19, 2021, experiencing many technical issues, which Lindell ascribed to a "massive attack".[30] Frank has no social networking features[31] and primarily offers embedded video streams, including Absolute Interference, a two-hour video promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.[32][33][34]

Lindell has said he has spent millions of dollars developing Frank.[35] According to invoices published by a Salon writer, obtained from a leaked video conference with Lindell's IT team, Lindell spent about $936,000 on hardware, labor, and services to launch Frank.[36] Jared Holt, an extremism and far-right media researcher at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, opined that Lindell was "being had by the people around him.... All the various products and ventures Lindell has going on, whether it's a pseudo-documentary film or a social media platform, are very expensive endeavors. Someone is taking Lindell's money from him to produce this stuff."[37] Lindell told Insider in March 2022 that he was spending over $1 million per month on Frank.[38] FrankSpeech went public through a merger with a holding company two years later.[39]

FrankSocial, a social networking site hosted on a different domain, became available in April 2022. A reporter for Insider described FrankSocial as reminiscent of Facebook's design in 2012, with a basic news feed and no messaging function. Lindell had 308 followers there as of April 21, 2022, more than any other user.[40]

Effective April 23, 2025, Lindell's media company changed its name from FrankSpeech Network, Inc., to Mike Lindell Media Corp., and it changed its OTC Pink stock ticker symbol from FSBN to MLMC.[41]

Promotion of unproven medical treatments

In 2020, Lindell promoted the use of oleandrin, a cardiotoxic substance produced by oleanders, as a treatment for COVID-19, including arranging a pitch meeting between then-President Donald Trump and Andrew Whitney, a fellow board member of biopharmaceuticals company Phoenix Biotechnology (in which Lindell has a financial stake). Lindell said that oleandrin was shown to be safe in a study when, in reality, there is no scientific evidence that oleandrin is a safe or effective coronavirus treatment.[75][76][77][78]

2020 bus tour and January 6 rally

Lindell helped sponsor a bus tour that sought to challenge the election results. The two-week tour ended in Washington, D.C., on December 14, 2020; Lindell spoke at five stops. Lindell said that "he did not help finance subsequent trips to promote the Jan. 6 rally," referring to the rally that was followed by the storming of the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Lindell attended this rally but did not go to the Capitol.[79] Following the Capitol storming, Lindell was among those who advanced the false conspiracy theory that people associated with antifa were responsible for the attack, saying they had probably "dressed as Trump people".[80][81] On January 15, 2021, Lindell carried a document into the West Wing of the White House; the document, as seen in an enhanced photo, appeared to refer to martial law, the Insurrection Act, and replacing Gina Haspel with Trump loyalist Kash Patel as the CIA director.[82][83]

Twitter ban

On January 25, 2021, Twitter permanently banned Lindell for perpetuating the unsubstantiated claim that Trump won the 2020 election. A Twitter spokesperson explained that Lindell violated the company's civic integrity policy implemented in September 2020 to fight disinformation.[84][85][86] After his personal account was banned, Lindell circumvented the ban by using the corporate My Pillow Twitter account to issue several tweets, including a call for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to "be found out" and "put in prison when all is revealed!" Following the tweets, Twitter permanently banned the My Pillow account for violating the platform's ban evasion policy.[87]

Absolute Proof documentary

Lindell purchased three hours of airtime on One America News Network, which had also been threatened with legal action, to broadcast Absolute Proof, a documentary that makes false claims about the election, on February 5, 2021. OANN broadcast a lengthy disclaimer before the program saying the claims were Lindell's alone but that the 2020 election results "remain disputed and questioned by millions of Americans".[14][88] YouTube removed the documentary that day for violating its policy against election disinformation.[89] At the 41st Golden Raspberry Awards, which gives awards to the films judged the worst, Absolute Proof won the Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Picture and Worst Actor for Lindell.[90][91] On April 20, 2021, Lindell published a second documentary titled Absolute Interference, which also promoted debunked conspiracy theories about the election and criticized the news media and communism.[33][92]

Voting machine conspiracy theory

Lindell promoted a conspiracy theory which falsely claimed that voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion conspired with foreign powers to rig voting machines to steal the election from Trump. In January and February 2021, Dominion warned Lindell that they planned to sue him, stating in their letter: "You have positioned yourself as a prominent leader of the ongoing misinformation campaign." (Both Smartmatic and Dominion sent similar letters to others as well.)[93][14] After Newsmax had broadcast a "clarification" of its false reporting on voting machine fraud in response to a demand letter from Dominion, followed by a defamation suit from a company executive,[94][95] Lindell appeared on the network on February 2, 2021, in an interview to discuss cancel culture but pivoted to repeating the false claims about rigged voting machines. Network anchor Bob Sellers tried to stop Lindell from making his claims; Sellers then read a disclaimer before walking off the set mid-interview.[96]

In August 2023, Lindell said he would prevent voting fraud by flying drones with wireless sniffing devices attached near polling places to determine whether voting machines are connected to the Internet.[97]

Dominion lawsuit

Dominion sent cease-and-desist letters to Lindell in December 2020 and January 2021 and asked him to retract his false claims about the company.[98][99] After Lindell refused (saying "sue me"),[98][99] Dominion filed suit for defamation on February 22, 2021, naming both Lindell and My Pillow as defendants and seeking US$1.3 billion in damages. In its complaint, Dominion alleged that Lindell and My Pillow used "defamatory marketing campaign—with promo codes like 'FightforTrump,' '45,' 'Proof,' and 'QAnon'—[which have] increased My Pillow sales by 30–40% and [continued] duping people into redirecting their election-lie outrage into pillow purchases"; Dominion further stated its intent was to "stop Lindell and My Pillow from further profiting at Dominion's expense".[100][101][102] On August 11, a federal court judge ruled that Dominion's defamation lawsuit against Lindell and My Pillow could proceed, noting that Dominion has "adequately alleged" that Lindell's accusations against the company were either knowingly false or made with "reckless disregard for the truth".[103]

On June 16, 2025, a federal jury in Colorado found Lindell liable for defamation against Eric Coomer, the former security and product strategy director at Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, whom Lindell called a traitor. The jury ordered Lindell and FrankSpeech to pay Coomer $2.3 million in damages.[104] In July 2025, attorneys representing Lindell were fined $6,000 after it was found that the filed brief contained AI hallucinations of misquotes and citations to fictional cases.[105]

Smartmatic lawsuit

In January 2022, Smartmatic sued Lindell for defamation and sought unspecified damages and legal fees; his false claims had reduced the company's value from more than $3 billion before the 2020 election to less than $1 billion.[106] On September 26, 2025, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan ruled that Lindell had defamed Smartmatic with 51 false claims. However, Bryan said that Smartmatic would still have to prove, via further proceedings, that Lindell had acted with actual malice before it could collect damages.[107]

Lindell's counter-lawsuits

In March 2021, Lindell said on Steve Bannon's War Room: Pandemic podcast that he would counter-sue Dominion in cases for himself and My Pillow, accusing Dominion of racketeering and election interference.[108][109]

In May 2022, the federal court dismissed all the claims by Lindell and MyPillow against Dominion, Smartmatic, and their lawyers and public relations firm. The court also ruled that Lindell and MyPillow would be liable to Smartmatic for attorney's fees, in an amount to be determined, for making claims that were frivolous under Rule 11.[114][115]

• My Pillow filed a $1.6 billion lawsuit against Dominion, arguing that Dominion had defamed the company; Lindell announced the lawsuit on April 19, 2021. Stephen Shackelford, legal counsel for Dominion, said that My Pillow's lawsuit was "a meritless retaliatory lawsuit, filed by My Pillow to try to distract from the harm it caused to Dominion".[110][111]
• Lindell sued Dominion and Smartmatic in June 2021; the day after, the lawyer who drafted and filed the suit for him left the law firm Barnes & Thornburg where he had been a partner. The firm said he had not received permission to participate in the lawsuit.[112][113]

Predictions of Trump's return to office

Lindell and others predicted various inquiries into the election would result in Trump being reinstated as president in 2021.[116] Lindell predicted that Trump would be reinstated on the morning of August 13, stating "it'll be the talk of the world". After August 13 passed and President Joe Biden remained in office, Lindell moved his prediction for Trump's return to September 30, which also did not happen.[117]

Chinese interference conspiracy theory

Lindell held a three-day "Cyber Symposium" ending August 12, 2021, promising to present "irrefutable evidence" of election fraud, but none was produced. Reporter Donie O'Sullivan brought cybersecurity expert Harri Hursti to the conference, and Hursti said that Lindell's purported evidence was a "pile of nothing" and found no proof of election fraud.[118][119]

In connection with the Cyber Symposion, Lindell claimed a certain dataset showed Chinese interference in the 2020 election, and offered $5 million to anyone who could prove otherwise.[120] This challenge was taken up by Robert Zeidman, a software developer who has been described as a Trump supporter and who claims to have thought the data was probably authentic because Lindell would not have offered a reward otherwise. The rules provided for binding arbitration by the American Arbitration Association (AAA). Zeidman concluded the data was not authentic and on April 20, 2023, a panel of AAA's Commercial Arbitration Tribunal ordered Lindell to pay the $5 million.[120] On February 21, 2024, the United States District Court of the District of Minnesota confirmed the arbitration award.[121][122] On July 23, 2025, the three-judge 8th United States Court of Appeals universally ruled in favor of Lindell's bid to avoiding paying Zeidman the $5 million, finding that the arbitration panel had improperly interpreted the rules of the contest.[123][124]

Bonner County, Idaho recount

In September 2021, Bonner County, Idaho, announced it would perform a recount of ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election, in response to an allegation by Lindell that all 44 Idaho counties had been digitally hacked. Lindell provided a detailed list of IP addresses he asserted had been compromised. County Clerk Mike Rosedale responded that all county voting machines were fully airgapped from the Internet, also noting that seven Idaho counties do not use voting machines. Lindell alleged that a specific formula had been applied by hackers to flip votes from Trump to Biden. Rosedale said Lindell had not contacted his office before presenting his allegations. Trump carried Bonner County with 67.2% of the vote and Idaho with 63.9% in the 2020 election.[125][126] At the conclusion of the Idaho recount, accuracy was determined to be within 0.1% for the election results with no indications of digital hacking. Idaho plans to bill Lindell for the cost of the recount.[127] The Bonner audit, and audits of two other counties that do not use voting machines, affirmed the accuracy of the ballot count. Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck said Lindell would be sent a bill for the audits.[128][129]

FBI warrant for phone search

On September 13, 2022, the FBI served a search and seizure warrant for Lindell's phone. As recounted by Lindell, speaking on his web show, agents surrounded his car at a fast-food drive-through in Minnesota. In addition to sharing the search warrant on his show, Lindell claims FBI agents asked questions regarding Colorado's Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who was charged with election interference earlier that month.[130][131] Peters was later convicted of multiple charges[132] and sentenced to nine years in prison.[133]

Legal debt

Lindell's legal firm said in an October 2023 court filing that Lindell was in arrears by millions of dollars in fees and that the firm could no longer afford to represent him. Lindell praised his attorneys for their work, adding, "We've lost everything, every dime. All of it is gone."[134]

Other false claims

In January 2022, Lindell said that he possessed "enough evidence to put everybody in prison for life, 300-some million people" for their part in the alleged 2020 election fraud, which, at the time, was about 91 percent of the U.S. population.[135]

Lindell attended the 2024 Democratic National Convention in disguise, where he falsely claimed that there were 257,000 votes missing from the 2020 election.[136][137]