Mike Lindell

Michael James Lindell (born June 28, 1961), also known as the My Pillow Guy, is an American businessman, political activist, and conspiracy theorist.

He is the founder and CEO of My Pillow, a Pillow, bedding, and slipper manufacturing company.

Lindell is a prominent supporter of and advisor to former U.S. President Donald Trump.

Lindell was born in 1961 in Mankato, Minnesota.

He was raised in Chaska and Carver, Minnesota.

Lindell's gambling addiction began to emerge in his teenage years.

He attended the University of Minnesota after high school, but dropped out a few months into his studies.

Lindell became addicted to and a frequent user of cocaine in his 20s.

The buildup of his addictions between the 1980s and 1990s led to the foreclosure of his house and his wife filing for divorce.

In the 1980s, Lindell launched and operated a number of small businesses, including carpet cleaning, lunch wagons, and a few bars and restaurants in Carver County, Minnesota.

This addiction became worse after he switched to crack cocaine in the 1990s.

Lindell was also incurring gambling debts.

Lindell invented My Pillow, a Pillow filled with pieces of shredded foam that interlock, in 2004.

Lindell grew the business into a Minnesota manufacturing company.

Lindell stated that he achieved sobriety through prayer in 2009.

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, more than any other user.

During the early days of My Pillow, Lindell made donations to the Salvation Army and Union Gospel Mission.

Lindell founded the Lindell Foundation, a non-profit organization that assists former addicts in getting treatment and other services.

The foundation broadened over time, including cancer victims and veterans in their outreach.

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.

Lindell said, "Naturally, I am terribly disappointed by the BBB's decision."

After Trump's defeat in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Lindell played a significant role in supporting and financing Trump's attempts to overturn the election result; he spread disproven conspiracy theories about widespread electoral fraud in that election.

He has also promoted unproven medical treatments for COVID-19.

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

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.

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.

Lindell operates two web sites under the Frank brand: Frank (sometimes called FrankSpeech), focused on video streaming, and the social network 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.

Frank launched on the domain frankspeech.com on April 19, 2021, experiencing many technical issues, which Lindell ascribed to a "massive attack".

Frank has no social networking features and primarily offers embedded video streams, including Absolute Interference, a two-hour video promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.

Lindell has said he has spent millions of dollars developing Frank.

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.

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."

Lindell told Insider in March 2022 that he was spending over $1 million per month on Frank.

FrankSocial, a social networking site hosted on a different domain, became available in April 2022.