The Rise and Fall of Mike Lindell

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's reputation as a successful businessman appears to be on its way to completing its arc.

While launched into stardom as a crack-addict-turned-self-made millionaire, Lindell has faced numerous business setbacks that have ultimately led to the demise of his company and culminated in a sudden credit line cut by American Express.

On Monday's episode of the "War Room" podcast, Lindell told fellow Trump ally Steve Bannon that the financial services company slashed MyPillow's credit line by 90 percent.

"We've been with them 15 years and we do all of our online marketing, all our shipping with them," Lindell said. "Out of the blue, they took our credit line from a million dollars down to $100,000, just cripples MyPillow. No reason, no explanation, just dropped it down last Tuesday."

But MyPillow hadn't always faced hardships as a business.

Lindell began building his bedding empire from scratch in 2004. The Minnesota native was a college dropout who pursued several unsuccessful business ventures before he sought to create a pillow company—an idea that he said came to him in a dream.

As someone who always had trouble sleeping, Lindell came up with a pillow that would hold its shape through its foam design. In 2005, he started selling his pillows at a mall kiosk and continued to do so for the next six years.

During that time, Lindell became what he described as "a pretty hard-core cocaine addict"—an addiction that, at one point, kept him awake for 19 consecutive days—a tidbit of his personal history that the businessman often talks about when discussing his rise. He said he quit drugs cold turkey in January 2009.

"I was on a parallel railroad track. I was an addict, a cocaine addict first, then crack cocaine," he told Yahoo Finance in 2020. Lindell also penned a memoir titled What Are The Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO that year.

With little commercial success by 2011, he decided to make an infomercial for his product. He has recalled ad-libbing a 30-minute show that quickly dominated the airwaves. Lindell told the Star Tribune in 2013 that it was being played almost 200 times a day. Within two years, MyPillows' sales shot up from $3 million to $102 million between 2010 and 2012 and the company grew from 60 employees to more than 500.

By 2018, MyPillow had sold 30 million pillows, growing the company's annual revenue to nearly $300 million, Lindell told CNBC.

But things began to go downhill for the company in 2016, when state authorities and consumer interest groups began questioning the claims made by the company.

Officials in California sued Lindell for unsubstantiated health claims, accusing the company of false advertising its products as being able to help those who suffer with fibromyalgia, restless leg syndrome and sleep apnea. MyPillow agreed to settle the matter and pay $995,000 in civil penalties and $100,000 in contributions to California charities that offer sleeping accommodations for homeless individuals and victims of domestic violence. The company was also barred from making similar claims without human trials that backed up their statements.

In a separate class action lawsuit settled in San Bernardino, MyPillow agreed to pay $5 per household to customers who submit a claim form.

In 2017, the Better Business Bureau revoked MyPillow's A+ grade, giving them an F after it received a barrage of complaints against the company, including concerns that its "buy one get one" promotion was offered continuously, and thus, not a deal, but the standard price of the product.

"Continuous BOGO offers, which can then be construed as an item's regular, everyday price, violate not only BBB's Code of Advertising - which all BBB Accredited Businesses agree to abide by - but also other state and national organizations' rules," the bureau said at the time.

Lindell's legal troubles seem to have coincided with his early and ardent support of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in his 2016 campaign.

"Everyone thought it was political, which I still believe it is," Lindell told CNBC.

The CEO of MyPillow joined Trump on the campaign trail, speaking at Trump rallies and attending both the final presidential debate and the official watch party for the 2016 election. After Trump's victory, he attended his inauguration and received a lapel pin as a personal gift from the Republican.

During the Trump administration, Lindell was invited to the White House to attend an industry roundtable event where he was seated beside Trump. Over time, he became a close adviser to the then-president.

"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 said during a 2019 speech.

Lindell was a staunch supporter even after Trump lost the 2020 election and was one of the most vocal supporters of the efforts to overturn Joe Biden's electoral win.

As well as promoting unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, Lindell also peddled a conspiracy theory that falsely claimed that voting machine companies like Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems conspired to rig the machines against Trump. As a result, he was sued for defamation by both companies. Lindell filed countersuits but his efforts were dismissed and he was ordered to pay Smartmatic's attorney fees for making frivolous claims.

Major retailers like Kohl's, Bed Bath & Beyond and Walmart also stopped carrying MyPillow products in the wake of his election fraud claims, although the outlets cited low customer demand. Lindell said the company lost $100 million as a result.

Despite counterclaims, Lindell and other Trump allies have continued to suggest that his support for Trump is the reason for his problems.

On Monday, Bannon told him, "Let me be blunt: Here's why it is. Because Trump's up 10 points and now the majority of the American people understand the 2020 election was stolen...That's why American Express, they're trying to debank you."

An American Express spokesperson disputed those claims, telling Newsweek, "We can't comment on specific customer accounts or applications, but I can tell you that American Express does not make customer decisions based on personal views or political affiliations."