MyPillow founder Mike Lindell was ordered to pay $5 million to a computer and software expert who succeeded in refuting his data related to 2020 election fraud claims, according to a decision from a private arbitration panel.
Lindell, who has long repeated former President Donald Trump's claims that the 2020 election was "stolen," promised an award to any cybersecurity expert who could disprove his data that alleged in part that Chinese interference caused the election results to favor then-candidate Joe Biden's victory.
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The offer was made ahead of a "cyber symposium" to be held in August 2021 in South Dakota. Lindell called the challenge "Prove Mike Wrong," prompting Robert Zeidman, a computer forensics expert and 63-year-old Trump voter from Nevada, to take the MyPillow CEO up on his offer.
In a 23-page decision released Wednesday, the arbitration panel said Zeidman succeeded in proving Lindell's material “unequivocally did not reflect November 2020 election data.” It told Lindell's firm to pay Zeidman within 30 days.
“Based on the foregoing analysis, Mr. Zeidman performed under the contract,” the arbitration panel wrote in its decision. “He proved the data Lindell LLC provided, and represented reflected information from the November 2020 election, unequivocally did not reflect November 2020 election data. Failure to pay Mr. Zeidman the $5 million prized was a breach of the contract, entitling him to recover.”
Lindell told the Washington Examiner that "it was a horrible decision," claiming Zeidman was "the only guy that said that the evidence was not from the 2020 election, which it was."
"The arbitrators made a horrible wrong decision and it'll end up in court. And we're going to keep moving to get rid of the electronic voting machines and get the paper ballots hand-counted," Lindell said, adding he doesn't intend to pay the $5 million to Zeidman.
To those who know...
— Bob Zeidman (@bob_zeidman) April 19, 2023
I won!
To those who don't, you'll know soon.
Zeidman tweeted about his victory Wednesday, saying, "To those who know ... I won!"
Lindell's Sioux Falls-based symposium was designed to showcase data to journalists and the public that he claimed to have obtained relating to the 2020 election.
“There’s a $5 million prize for anybody that can prove the election data that I have from the 2020 election was false, is not from the 2020 election,” Lindell said on the online conservative talk show The Glazov Gang.
Zeidman entered the challenge, agreed to a set of contractual terms, and found Lindell's data could not verify his claims of fraud in the 2020 election because they were not "valid data from the November 2020 election," according to the panel.
“The Contest did not require participants to disprove election interference. Thus, the contestants’ task was to prove the data presented to them was not valid data from the November 2020 election,” the arbitration panel wrote.
The panel's decision ultimately sided with Zeidman's findings that the data were unrelated to the 2020 election.
Lindell is planning a return to Springfield, Missouri, on Aug.16 for an event titled "Election Crime Bureau Summit." He hosted an event last year titled "Moment of Truth Summit," which featured attendees such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and other speakers who presented their cases of 2020 election fraud within their respective areas.
Lindell also faces a $1.3 billion defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems and a defamation lawsuit from one of Dominion’s former executives. That company entered a settlement with Fox News this week for $787 million after a trial over similar defamation claims was set to begin with the cable news network.
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The Washington Examiner contacted Zeidman and one of his attorneys.
Read the full 23-page decision below: