Fact Check: Did Mike Lindell film himself driving recklessly along highway?

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was ordered by a U.S. District Court this week to pay $5 million to a computer forensics expert who challenged data Lindell said was proof that China had interfered in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

At a 2021 symposium, Lindell claimed he possessed data that proved Chinese interference and offered $5 million to anyone who could prove his data did not correspond to the election. Computer forensics expert Robert Zeidman, 63, ended up proving Lindell wrong, according to a private arbitration panel.

The panel said, Lindell Management, which created the contest, must give Zeidman $5 million after initially refusing to pay him.

Following the ruling, a video was widely shared online in which Lindell appeared to be driving recklessly down a highway, talking directly to camera as he drove.

The Claim

A post on X, formerly Twitter, by user @swd2 on February 22, 2024, viewed 742,700 times, included a video that appeared to show Mike Lindell talking to camera as he drove, not looking towards traffic.

User @swd2 wrote alongside “Mr Pillow out there hustlin’ to come up with the $5m judgment against him.”

The Facts

The video of Lindell is digitally edited. The original did not show him driving recklessly down a highway.

In March 2023, Lindell appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, speaking from the driving seat of a stationary car, as he faced defamation lawsuits from Dominion Voting Systems, Smartmatic, former Dominion employee Eric Coomer, and a personal tax audit.

Lindell said at the time he had been forced to borrow $10 million to fight these lawsuits.

The video can still be found on the podcast’s website.

On March 27, 2023, former federal prosecutor Ron Filipkowski posted about Lindell’s appearance, commenting, “Strung-out looking Mike Lindell says he really needs people to buy some of his new slippers after he was canceled by retailers and shopping channels.”

Fillipkowski’s post was viewed more than seven million times on X alone. The video was widely discussed elsewhere on social media.

Comedy writer Jesse McClaren, responded to Filipkowski’s post on March 30, 2023, with the edit of the video, changing the background to a rolling highway.

McClaren, whose post was viewed 5.6 million times, wrote: “I made it look like the car’s moving and it’s 100x better.”

McClaren was not credited, nor was context provided when the same clip was shared this week.

Following the U.S. District Court’s $5 million ruling against him on Wednesday, CBS News reported that Lindell had said he only had $10,000 to his name.

“We’re not able to pay—I can’t borrow money to pay these attorneys. MyPillow can’t pay because of what happened” with lost sales, Lindell said after the decision, according to CBS News. “I have $10,000 to my name.”

Lindell told Newsweek on Thursday afternoon that he was not sure where CBS News got that information. “I will continue with the plan to secure our election platforms,” he said. “This is just another attack and distraction.”

The Ruling

False.

Mike Lindell did not film himself driving recklessly down a highway. The original footage was filmed in a stationary vehicle in March 2023.

The uncut footage went viral and was later edited to make it look like he was driving and filming himself at the same time.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek’s Fact Check team