MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is certain the 2020 election was stolen. He’s so certain, in fact, that in 2021 he issued a challenge to his critics: Prove my data wrong and win $5 million. The theatrics behind his challenge were pure Lindell — but on Thursday, a three-member arbitration panel agreed that his “prove Mike wrong” challenge was more than just marketing. It was a binding legal contract.
Records from last year indicate Lindell is spending $1 million each month to keep the lights on at his fledgling far-right social media platform, Frank Speech.
The finding points to a trend that would appear self-defeating — exorbitant amounts of money hemorrhaged into a conspiracy theory that is continuously disproved and often ridiculed. But in a remarkable show of MAGA loyalty, he isn’t just soldiering on, he’s doubling down on the expensive business of election denial.
Lindell made his flashy $5 million offer at a “summit” he’d hastily convened in South Dakota, where he promised to present evidence so convincing that the Supreme Court would unanimously agree to oust President Joe Biden. For the occasion, Lindell shared a spreadsheet of data he claimed showed Chinese interference in the 2020 election. There’s just one problem: His data had nothing to do with the 2020 election at all.
“Almost everyone there was pro-Trump, and everyone said, ‘This data is nonsense,’” said Robert Zeidman, a software engineer and self-described Trump Republican who took only a few days to thoroughly debunk Lindell’s junk data. That was two years ago. Now arbitrators agree: Zeidman was right and Lindell was wrong.
Lindell dismissed the entire process as illegitimate. “I don’t owe him any money,” he told CBS’ “MoneyWatch” after the decision. “[Zeidman] didn’t prove anything … this has all been one big plan, a coordinated plan to stop me.” For someone who has faced as many humiliating legal hurdles as Lindell, one would think he’d be better at taking…
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