Mike Lindell Ordered to Pay $5 Million to Trump Voter Who Debunked His Election Lies

Fox News isn’t alone in having to pay millions of dollars for lying about the 2020 election. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was ordered on Wednesday to pay $5 million to Robert Zeidman, a 63-year-old Trump voter who debunked Lindell’s claim that China interfered in the election based on data Lindell provided.

It’s a strange story. It started in August 2021 when Lindell claimed during a “cyber symposium” in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, that he had data proving China interfered in the election. He announced he would pay $5 million to anyone who prove him wrong, dubbing the contest, naturally, the “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge.”

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Zeidman signed up for the challenge, which required only that contestants prove that the data Lindell provided didn’t have anything to do with the 2020 election. Zeidman, a computer forensics specialist, did just that, finding the data was total nonsense. Lindell refused to pay up, so Zeidman took him to arbitration. The arbitration panel ruled that Zeidman did indeed prove that the data in question “unequivocally did not reflect November 2020 election data,” ordering Lindell to pay within 30 days.

“The truth is finally out there,” Zeidman told The Washington Post in a statement, adding that he is “really happy” with the decision.

Lindell doesn’t seem very keen to abide by the decision. “It will end up in court,” Lindell said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “Just another attack to try and stop us from getting rid of the electronic voting machines.”

Asked if that meant he was having his lawyers file a challenge imminently, Lindell replied, “Yes.”

Even in the aftermath of Fox’s mammoth settlement with Dominion Voting Systems after a bruising and often embarrassing legal fight for the network, Lindell remained determined to keep aggressively pushing election denialism and baseless conspiracy theories this week.

Shortly after news broke Thursday of the order for him to pay up, the pillow mogul and Trump friend started telling Rolling Stone about his upcoming August “Election Crime Bureau Summit,” where he claims: “It will be over finally with all the attacks,” and that “I will be vindicated and all the media can apologize afterwards!”

Lindell is no stranger to court. The conspiracy theorizing pillow magnate was sued for defamation by Dominion and Smartmatic Voting Systems over false claims that the companies helped rig the election in President Biden’s favor. Lindell made the claims through several outlets, including Fox News, which on Monday settled their own defamation suit brought by Dominion to the tune of $787.5 million.

The pillow magnate remains defiant. In his Tuesday broadcast of the Mike Lindell Show, Lindell asserted that “even if Dominion or Smartmatic or any of them offered me a billion dollars, I would say no,” adding a warning to the companies that their “machines are going to go bye-bye.”

This article was updated Thursday, April 20, 2023, at 6:20 PM to include additional comments made by Lindell

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