By LawInspectsMike Lindell Lawsuit is a defamation lawsuit filed against Mike Lindell by a company named Smartmatic. Mike Lindell is the founder and CEO of a bedding/slipper/pillow manufacturing company named MyPillow, besides being a political activist and conspiracy theorist. Smartmatic, on the other hand, is a London-based electronic voting software company.
The lawsuit against Mike Lindell concerns the statements he made against Smartmatic, alleging that the company flipped elections in favor of the Democrat candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 US Presidential elections. Currently, Mike Lindell is in trouble after a federal court held him responsible for contempt in this lawsuit.
Background of the Controversy
Smartmatic is an election technology company that contracted with Los Angeles County in the state of California to design election hardware and software, and provide support services in the 2020 US Presidential Elections. Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and a hardcore supporter of the Republican candidate Donald Trump, issued statements alleging inclusion of false votes by Smartmatic and another company named Dominion Voting Systems, in order to flip the elections in favor of Joe Biden, the democratic candidate and the winner of the elections.
In the year 2021, Dominion Voting Systems sued Mike Lindell and MyPillow, alleging slanderous claims of election fraud against it. Mike Lindell later filed a lawsuit against both Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. In the lawsuit, Lindell alleged RICO violations, besides making other claims against both the companies.
In May 2022, Washington D.C. District Judge Carl J. Nichols ruled against Mike Lindell. The court concluded that Lindell’s claims under the Advocacy Clause along with other claims fell on the frivolous side. Moreover, the court agreed with Smartmatic that at least some claims by Lindell were groundless. On January 13, 2025, the court directed Mike Lindell to pay $56,369 to Smartmatic in order to cover some of the legal expenses incurred by the company in defending itself.
Summary of the lawsuit
In January 2022, Smartmatic filed a lawsuit against Mike Lindell alleging defamation over his statements made against the company. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. Minnesota was chosen by the company because Mike Lindell is a resident of Minnesota and MyPillow is based in Minnesota.
As per the lawsuit, Lindell made false claims that Smartmatic manipulated votes in states and jurisdictions across the United States, including states where Smartmatic was not involved in the election process in any way whatsoever. Consequently, the company’s global reputation of providing secure, reliable and auditable election software and technology suffered a severe setback.
The lawsuit also alleged that Lindell used his defamatory statements against Smartmatic to generate profits for his company, MyPillow. To this end, he skilfully incorporated his product promotions in the defamatory campaign against Smartmatic in order to influence Trump’s supporters towards buying MyPillow products.
Smartmatic claimed that, apart from a tarnished reputation, it suffered a two-billion dollar loss in market value and incurred out-of-pocket costs. Thus, the lawsuit is seeking economic and non-economic damages, punitive damages and attorney’s fees and costs from Lindell for defamation and violations of the Minnesota Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Furthermore, the lawsuit prays for an injunction directing Lindell to retract his defamatory statements and its implications fully and completely.
Progress in the lawsuit
In March 2025, the US District Court for Minnesota held Mike Lindell responsible for contempt of court for failing to submit financial documents and other discovery materials with the court in the defamation lawsuit filed by Smartmatic. On March 6, 2025, Judge Jeffrey M. Bryan granted a contempt motion filed by Smartmatic which alleged that Lindell had failed to produce his personal tax returns for the years 2022 and 2023, and the analytics data from his website.
Lindell has been given a deadline of March 27, 2025 to submit six data points from his company’s website. The said data points are to be from the period between February 1, 2021 and August 31, 2021. The judge also noted that if Lindell is not able to retrieve the data points, then he is required to submit an affidavit from a reliable party explaining the reason behind the failure to retrieve the data.
Mike Lindell said he has nothing to hide and dismissed the contempt finding as an attempt to silence him on the issue of electronic voting machines.