Mike Lindell
Michael James Lindell, also known as the My Pillow Guy and Mike Pillow, 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 U.S. President Donald Trump. 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, and spread disproven conspiracy theories about widespread electoral fraud in that election. He has also promoted unproven medical treatments for COVID-19.
In December 2025, Lindell announced that he would seek the Republican nomination for Governor of Minnesota in the 2026 Minnesota gubernatorial election, and received public support from Donald Trump.
Background
Lindell was born on June 28, 1961, in Mankato, Minnesota. He was raised in Chaska and Carver, Minnesota. Lindell says he began to develop a gambling addiction in his teenage years. He attended the University of Minnesota after high school in 1979, but dropped out a few months into his studies. Lindell became addicted to and a frequent user of cocaine in his 20s. This addiction became worse after he switched to crack cocaine in the 1990s. Lindell was also incurring gambling debts. The buildup of his addictions between the 1980s and 1990s led to the foreclosure of his house and his wife filing for divorce. Lindell said that he achieved sobriety through prayer in 2009.Career
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.My Pillow
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.The Better Business Bureau 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."
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.
In September 2024, Lindell faced controversy when MyPillow announced a sale of their classic pillow for a price of $14.88, which critics have noted is a common Nazi dog whistle combining references to the Fourteen Words and a Nazi chant. Numerous white supremacist accounts praised MyPillow and Mike Lindell in response. Lindell has denied that there was any hidden meaning behind the price.
Media enterprises
Lindell operates two web sites under Mike Lindell Media Corporation: LindellTV.com, formerly Frank or FrankSpeech), focused on video streaming, and the social network Vocl.com, formerly 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. FrankSpeech went public through a merger with a holding company two years later.
FrankSocial, a social networking site hosted on a different domain, became available in April 2022. 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, 2022, more than any other user.
Effective April 23, 2025, Lindell's media company changed its name from FrankSpeech Network, Inc., to Mike Lindell Media Corp., and it changed its OTC Pink stock ticker symbol from FSBN to MLMC.
Philanthropy
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.
In 2019, Lindell launched the Lindell Recovery Network, which connects addicts with others who have gone through drug addiction and the recovery process, as well as faith-based treatment centers and other recovery organizations.
Political activities
Lindell met with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in August 2016 and became an avid supporter. He called Trump "the most amazing president this country has ever seen in history" after his 2016 election victory. In a speech at Liberty University in August 2019, Lindell said, "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 attended the final presidential debate in Las Vegas on October 19, 2016. He spoke at a Trump campaign rally in Minneapolis on November 6, 2016, and attended the Official Donald Watch Party on November 8. He attended Trump's inauguration and Trump gave him an inauguration lapel pin as a personal gift.
Lindell sat next to Trump at an industry roundtable event at the White House in 2017.
Trump complimented Lindell for his "business acumen" at a rally in Fargo, North Dakota, on June 27, 2018. Lindell spoke at a Trump rally on October 4, 2018, in Rochester, Minnesota. Lindell delivered a speech at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference, in which he said that Trump was "the greatest president in history" and had been "chosen by God".
Lindell met with Trump and a Trump staffer to discuss opioid addiction in 2019. Lindell was present when Trump signed a bipartisan bill that addressed the growing opioid crisis and attempted to prevent opioid abuse and deadly overdoses.
In a March 2020 appearance on Fox News, Lindell said that his company's bedding factories had been refocused on face mask production at the behest of the Trump administration. Later that month, Lindell appeared with Trump at a White House coronavirus press conference, at which Lindell praised Trump: "God gave us grace on November 8, 2016, to change the course we were on. God had been taken out of our schools and lives, a nation had turned its back on God. I encourage you to use this time at home to get back in the word. Read our Bible and spend time with our families."
Lindell had considered running for governor of Minnesota in 2022 against Democratic incumbent Tim Walz, reportedly at Trump's urging. He attended a Republican Governors Association meeting, at which he was encouraged to run. He became the campaign chair for Trump's reelection campaign in Minnesota in May 2020. Lindell said he was "99% sure" about running for Minnesota governor in July 2020 but ultimately neither ran nor provided an explanation.
In November 2020, Lindell was among those who contributed toward paying the bail of the Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse. Lindell later said that he had donated to "The Fight Back Foundation Inc. to help fund election fraud litigation, among other things" and that reports that he had paid $50,000 for Rittenhouse's bail were "fake news".
In April 2022, Lindell's mention of his donating as much as $800,000 to a legal defense fund for Tina Peters, then a Republican candidate for Colorado Secretary of State, raised questions as such a donation would violate Colorado state law; the state's ethics commission investigated the fund after a complaint about a lack of donor transparency.
Lindell rejoined Twitter in May 2022, circumventing a Twitter ban on his former account. Hours after rejoining, however, Twitter terminated Lindell's newest account for ban evasion. In December 2022, his account was reinstated after Elon Musk acquired Twitter.
Lindell announced that he was running for Chair of the Republican National Committee in November 2022. On January 27, 2023, he lost after receiving four of the 167 votes cast.
On December 3, 2025, Lindell filed required paperwork to allow him to run in the 2026 Minnesota gubernatorial election.
On December 11, 2025, Lindell announced his intention to run in the 2026 Minnesota gubernatorial election. Later that month, he received public support from Donald Trump.