Republicans interested in the art of pillow making may be in for a treat this week as MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has had to turn to auctioning off his company's equipment to make money.
Mr Lindell — who on top of running the pillow company also unofficially serves as Donald Trump's number one election denier and booster — announced he would auction off more than 800 items, including personal possessions and equipment from his factories, according to Insider.
The listings for the auction include a 2005 Dodge Sprinter Van, sporting the not-optional "cracked windshield" feature, as well as older Apple all-in-one iMacs, several freight trucks, and a stained ottoman.
During an interview with Minnesota broadcaster WCCO, Mr Lindell explained that the auction was meant to help reduce excess inventory and keep his workers in their jobs.
"We have all this retail stuff. The retailers have abandoned us. What are we supposed to do, everybody? Just paperweights there? No, we are auctioning it off," he said during a livestream.
He then blamed outside forces conspiring against him — like the big box retailers who formerly carried his pillows — for leaving him in a position where he has to gut his manufacturing facilities and sell them for scrap.
"Before they did this to MyPillow, we were so big that we needed like four times of the equipment we had right now to make retail packaging, to make the retail pillows," Mr Lindell said. "So my guys said, 'Hey, can we get rid of some of this stuff and sublease part of that building?' Which we said, 'Fine.'"
He previously told Insider that he had to borrow $10m in 2022 to keep the company afloat.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is auctioning off company assets— (AP)
The retailers' decision to abandon Mr Lindell was not unprompted; he has complained numerous times that companies – including Bed, Bath, and Beyond; Kohl's; QVC; JCPenny; and Wayfair – all refused to continue stocking his pillows because of his insistence that the 2020 election was stolen.
Mr Lindell has spent the last three years feverishly trying to convince the world that the 2020 election was stolen due to massive voter fraud. Those efforts included a much-hyped "cyber symposium" where he promised to provide incontrovertible evidence of voter fraud (he didn't) and the release of a documentary in 2021 called "Absolute Proof" that provided no such thing.
The pillow magnate is currently the subject of a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, the same company that sued Fox News. The network ultimately paid $787.5m to settle that lawsuit.
Mr Lindell's devotion to Mr Trump's election fraud claims forced the Minnesota Bank & Trust to end its relationship with him last year, calling him a "reputation risk."
