MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell
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MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell says four vendors have bailed on his MyStore e-commerce platform.Lindell told Insider these businesses “don’t want to deal with MyStore” for fear of an FBI probe.Lindell’s phone was seized by the FBI last week at a Hardee’s drive-thru in Minnesota.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell told Insider on Tuesday that four entrepreneurs whose businesses were set to be listed on his MyStore e-commerce platform have pulled out of the plan.
Speaking to Insider, Lindell said that after the FBI seized his phone at a Hardee’s drive-thru last week, at least four businesses have told him that they “don’t want to deal” with his MyStore platform.
“You know, they don’t want to have the connection of the FBI. The FBI scares them,” Lindell said of the vendors.
“They don’t want to get canceled, you know?” he added.
Lindell did not name the entrepreneurs but said they had “really good” products, adding that he had inked deals with them that have since fallen through. The businessman told Insider that he was also informed over the last week that a “private lender” had rescinded “two to three million dollars” worth of support for one of the four businesses that were angling to sell products on the MyStore platform.
“This money was already earmarked for one of these vendors, one of these entrepreneurs, so that they would have enough products and be listed up on MyStore,” Lindell said. “And then they (the lenders) canceled the loan because they found out it was linked to MyStore. It’s very sad.”
MyStore was started in April 2021 as Lindell’s “patriotic” answer to Amazon. The store now lists a gamut of products, including the Lindell-backed MyCoffee, a range of ground coffee with the businessman’s face emblazoned on the packaging.
The MyStore pull-out is not the first time Lindell has run into issues with financial institutions and collaborators due to pushing former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud.
In February, one of Lindell’s banks cut ties with him, citing him as a “reputation risk,” after he was subpoenaed by the January 6 House select committee for his phone records.
In June, Lindell accused Walmart, MyPillow’s biggest distributor, of “canceling” him and pulling his pillows from their stores.
Lindell told Insider last week that the phone seizure was linked to an investigation into Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, a pro-Trump Colorado election official accused of facilitating an election-data leak.
On Tuesday, the businessman filed a lawsuit against the FBI and the Department of Justice for seizing his phone and accused the authorities of violating his constitutional rights.
Represented by a legal team that includes conservative lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Lindell’s suit claims the FBI violated his “First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment” rights. He is also demanding that his cell phone be returned and that any information obtained from his phone by the FBI or DOJ not be released.
Separately, Lindell told Insider on Tuesday that he had been having trouble accessing his cash and wiring money to his businesses without his phone.
“I can’t do money wires,” Lindell said, telling Insider that the codes he needed were all on the phone that was seized. “They took the files that were in there, and it really crippled me with work.”