An arbitration panel ordered MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to pay $5 million within 30 days to a Nevada software developer for proving Lindell was wrong in his claim that certain data was related to the 2020 presidential election and purported voting machine fraud.
The panel, in its 23-page ruling issued Wednesday, said that the Robert Zeidman “proved the data Lindell LLC provided, and represented reflected information from the November 2020 election, unequivocally did not reflect November 2020 election data.” Zeidman, a software developer, entered the “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge” contest in during a cyber symposium in August 2021.
The American Arbitration Association panel, which held a three-day hearing in January in the case, also said that the Lindell LLC’s “failure to pay Mr. Zeidman the $5 million” offered as the stated prize of the contest “was a breach of the contract, entitling him to recover.”
Lindell, who had said he believed the data revealed that China had interefered in the 2020 election in several states, called the ruling “a horrrible decision.”
He also told CNBC that he will challenge the arbitration panel’s decision in court.
“The evidence was from 2020,” Lindell said of the data that was the subject of the contest. “This is the only guy who says it wasn’t.”
CNBC has requested comment from Zeidman’s legal team.
Lindell is one of the most prominent advocates of claims that former President Donald Trump was swindled out of a victory in the 2020 election by voting machine results that were tampered with.
He told CNBC in December 2021 that he had spent $25 million of his own money to promote claims that the election was stolen from Trump.
Bill Barr, who worked as attorney general under Trump, has said there was no widespread voting fraud in the election.
The U.S. intelligence community, according to a declassified report in 2021, has said there are “no indications that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 US elections, including voter registration, casting ballots, vote tabulation, or reporting results.”
Lindell is being sued for $1.3 billion by Dominion Voting Systems for allegedly defaming that voting maching company with his allegations.
Lindell faces a separate defamation lawsuit by another voting machine company, Smartmatic.
On Tuesday, Fox Corp. and its cable networks agreed to pay $787.5 million to Dominion Voting Systems to settle a lawsuit over false claims about Dominion’s machines swaying the outcome of the 2020 election.
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