Background and career
Michael James Lindell ( lin-DEL; born June 28, 1961), also known as the My Pillow Guy and Mike Pillow, is an American businessman, political activist, and conspiracy theorist. He is the founder and former 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 Trump. On August 4, 2026, Lindell announced he would step down as MyPillow CEO to shift his focus on his run for Governor; on August 11, 2026, Lindell lost the Republican primary to Lisa Demuth.
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.
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.
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 (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." 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.
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.
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.
