Mike Lindell, also known as the "My Pillow Guy," has led an eventful life. Apart from achieving significant success with his company MyPillow, he has also made a name for himself by being a Donald Trump supporter and election denier.
Lindell, who has been promoting the claims that voting machines were manipulated in 2020 to steal the presidential elections from then-President Trump, was recently dealt a blow by the Supreme Court, which refused to hear his appeal related to having his mobile phone seized by the FBI at a restaurant drive-through as part of a vote tampering investigation.
He is no stranger to defamation cases too. Voting-machine manufacturers Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic and Eric Coomer, a former Dominion employee, had hit him with defamation cases for claiming the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
Lindell was also ordered by a federal judge to pay $5 million to Robert Zeidman, an engineer who took part in the "Prove Mike Wrong Challenge," following his claims about the 2020 election results.
With all these legal bills and defamations cases raking up, how much is the MyPillow founder really worth?
Minnesota roots
Born in 1961 in Mankato, Minnesota, Lindell's life took a turn due to his addiction to gambling. His struggles led him to drop out of the University of Minnesota shortly after enrollment. In his twenties, he spiraled into cocaine abuse, eventually transitioning to crack cocaine during the 1990s. Alongside his drug dependency, Lindell found himself accumulating huge gambling debts. The culmination of these addictions led to the foreclosure of his home and his wife seeking divorce.
Net worth
Though his early years were troubled by gambling and cocaine abuse, Lindell achieved success with the launch of MyPillow. Lindell had ventured into several small businesses before achieving significant success with MyPillow in 2004. The pillow, filled with interlocking pieces of shredded foam, became a hit. The company boomed, making Lindell a wealthy figure.
By 2017, the company was generating over $100 million a year and Lindell himself had a net worth of hundreds of millions. By 2019, the pillows became bestsellers at major retailers like Kohl's, Walmart and Bed Bath & Beyond with the company garnering around $500 million. Mike Lindell's net worth peaked between $200-$300 million.
Few years ago, it was reported that Lindell sold a 1993 Dassault-Breguet Falcon 50 private jet. Similar models sell for $1.5-$3.5 million. During an interview in 2023, Lindell claimed that he still owned another private jet.
2020 and conspiracy theories
Lindell's troubles began in 2020, when he became associated with conspiracy theories regarding Trump's loss in presidential elections. Soon, MyPillow suffered low rating, leading to retailers pulling out the products from their stores. By July 2023, MyPillow had resorted to auctioning off equipment and subleasing portions of their manufacturing space.
In 2020, Mike appointed his son Darren as the company's CEO. Though, he claims he does not own a dime, Mike Lindell's reported net worth in 2023 was approximately $174 million.
Lindell became an avowed Trump fan after their meeting in 2016. "When I met with Donald Trump, it felt like a divine appointment, and when I walked out of that office, I decided I was going to go all in," Lindell claimed. After Trump's defeat in the 2020 election, Lindell endorsed conspiracy theories surrounding the poll outcome.
Following Trump's loss in the 2020 election, Lindell became a vocal supporter of conspiracy theories alleging voting machine companies like Dominion and Smartmatic worked with foreign countries to rig the results in favor of Joe Biden. In an attempt to prove these claims, Lindell even directed, produced, and starred in a documentary titled "Absolute Proof" in 2021.
Frank Platform
Lindell oversees two websites under the Frank brand: Frank, alternatively known as FrankSpeech, which prioritizes video streaming, and the social networking platform FrankSocial. In an interview with Insider, Lindell disclosed that he was investing more than $1 million per month into Frank.
Downward spiral
In February 2024, a federal judge ruled that Mike Lindell must pay $5 million to software engineer Robert Zeidman, who contested Lindell's assertion that China's meddling influenced the 2020 U.S. presidential election outcome in favor of Biden. Zeidman proved Lindell's data wrong after he challenged via a Cyber Symposium" to present "irrefutable evidence" of voter fraud. Lindell claimed a certain dataset showed Chinese interference in the election. He launched the "Prove Mike Wrong Challenge," which offered a $5 million reward to anyone who could debunk his data related to the 2020 election. Zeidman concluded the data was not authentic and in 2023, a panel of AAA's Commercial Arbitration Tribunal ordered Lindell to pay the $5m.
Following the ruling, Lindell told NBC News, "I don't have any money. ... I have a pickup truck and a house that I live in. That's it."
This ruling adds to Lindell's legal challenges, including two defamation lawsuits: one from Dominion Voting Systems in the District of Columbia seeking $1.3 billion, and another from UK-based Smartmatic in Minnesota.
Lindell's legal team has sought to withdraw from defamation lawsuits brought up by the voting machine companies due to their client's outstanding legal fees, totaling millions of dollars.
