MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell Ordered To Pay $4,508 In Attorney’s Fees To Man Who Disproved His Election Conspiracy Theories

Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, was ordered to pay $4,508 in attorney’s fees from his management company, Lindell Management LLC, to the software developer Robert Zeidman.

A federal judge confirmed that Lindell was required to pay $5 million due to a contest he organized at one of his “cyber symposium” events after the 2020 election.

During the event, which the MyPillow CEO hosted, participants were invited to engage in a “Prove Mike Wrong” challenge. The challenge offered a chance to win $5 million if participants could demonstrate that the data Lindell presented about the 2020 election was false election data. The contest rules specified that participants could use arbitration if necessary.

Zeidman accepted the challenge and submitted a comprehensive 15-page report claiming that Lindell’s data had no relation to elections and did not demonstrate any fraud, as verified by a federal court decision on February 21.

At first, the software developer failed to get his prize but then pursued arbitration against Lindell and eventually won in the arbitration process.

Even though Lindell hoped that a federal judge would alter the $5 million award granted to Zeidman, Judge John Tunheim of the U.S. District Court in Minnesota refused to do so and highlighted that the panel endured a difficult task in interpreting a poorly drafted contract. 

Tunheim then affirmed that no evidence suggested the panel exceeded its authority.

On August 8 in Minnesota federal court, U.S. Magistrate Judge Dulce J. Foster concluded that a fee award was warranted.

Foster believed that Lindell Management LLC was undoubtedly “delinquent” in its responses to document production requests the software developer made in post-judgment discovery. The requests took at least 11 hours for the petitioner’s lawyers to work on.

“The Court held a hearing on the Motion on July 17, 2024, and largely ruled on the Motion from the bench,” he recalled. “During the hearing, Respondent admitted that it had not provided any responses—at all—to Petitioner’s Interrogatories.”

“Though Respondent produced a handful of documents in response to Petitioner’s Document Requests, it did not provide comprehensive responses to those requests and failed to produce any written responses or objections explaining why any documents were withheld,” he added.

In March, MyPillow faced a court-ordered eviction from a warehouse in Minnesota, but Lindell stated that they are still doing well financially. He claimed that this eviction is a formality related to a mutual agreement between himself and the warehouse’s owner to vacate this property, which he said was last used by MyPillow in spring 2023.

He also mentioned that his company subleased the space to a candy company in 2023 and planned on subleasing it to a sugar beet company in 2024. However, he claimed that the sugar beet company failed to sign the contract at the last minute, which left the MyPillow CEO and the warehouse owner “stranded.”

Court records say MyPillow owes the warehouse owner $217,489 in past-due rent.