Mike Lindell, CEO of Washington (CNN) My Pillow, was ordered to pay $5 million to an expert who exposed his data related to the 2020 election, according to a ruling by CNN’s arbitration board.
Lindell, a purveyor of electoral conspiracies, promised to award the multimillion-dollar sum to any cybersecurity expert who could disprove his data. An arbitration panel on Wednesday awarded Robert Zeidman, who has decades of software development experience, a $5 million payout after he sued Lindell for the sum.
CNN has received arbitration documents and video testimony related to the dispute, including a testimony from Lindell.
“Based on the foregoing analysis, Mr. Zeidman has performed the contract,” the arbitral tribunal wrote in its decision. “He proved that the data provided by Lindell LLC and reflected information from the November 2020 election clearly did not reflect the November 2020 election data. “
The decision is another blow to the MyPillow CEO’s credibility after he publicly touted unproven allegations of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Lindell was also sued for defamation related to his election allegations.
“The lawsuit and ruling mark another important moment in the ongoing proof that the 2020 election was legal and valid, and the role of cybersecurity in ensuring that integrity,” said Brian Glasser, founder of Bailey & Glasser, LLP, who represented Zeidman. “Lindell’s claim of having the 2020 election dates has been definitively debunked.”
In a brief phone interview with CNN, Lindell said “this is going to end up in court,” slammed the media and explained the need to get rid of electronic voting machines.
Zeidman told CNN’s Erin Burnett on OutFront Thursday that he was relieved at the verdict, adding that he wasn’t suing for the money, but to refute election lies.
“I have some friends that I hope will still be friends because I’m a conservative Republican,” Zeidman said. “But I thought the truth had to come out.”
Lindell convened what he called a “cyber symposium” in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 2021 to present the data he allegedly received related to the 2020 election. He invited journalists, politicians and cybersecurity experts to participate.
“The symposium was supposed to have the big audience and all the media there, and then they said — the cyber guys — yeah, this data is from the 2020 election, and you better look at how it’s going into our machines, our computers and… that was the whole purpose,” Lindell said in a statement obtained by CNN.
He also announced a “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge” — in which anyone who could prove their data had nothing to do with the 2020 election could win the multi-million dollar payout — to get more media attention for his voter fraud claims.
“I thought, well, what if I put a $5 million challenge out there, then there would be news, which it did,” Lindell said in the statement. “So you got some attention then.”
Zeidman signed up for the challenge, agreeing to the terms of the contract and finding that Lindell’s data was largely nonsensical.
“Typically, data analysis can take weeks or months, and I had three days,” Zeidman told CNN. “But the data was so obviously fake that it took me a couple of hours before I could show it was fake.”
While Lindell has made a variety of outlandish and unproven claims about the 2020 election, such as: For example, in insisting that foreign governments infiltrated voting machines, the tribunal clarified that its ruling focused solely on whether the data Lindell provided to the experts was related to the 2020 election.
“The competition did not require participants to disprove the manipulation of votes. Therefore, the task of the participants was to prove that the data presented to them was not valid data from the November 2020 elections,” the arbitral tribunal wrote.
“The panel was not asked to rule on whether China interfered in the 2020 election. Nor was the panel asked to determine whether Lindell LLC possessed data proving such interference or whether Lindell LLC had election data in its possession,” according to the arbitration panel. “The focus of the decision is on the 11 files provided to Mr. Zeidman in connection with the competition rules.”
The panel’s decision went through all the data files provided by Zeidman and repeatedly found that the data had nothing to do with the 2020 election.
It’s unclear when or if Zeidman will ever be able to collect his payout. Lindell recently told right-wing podcaster and former Trump administration official Steve Bannon that his company borrowed nearly $10 million as he battled defamation lawsuits related to his false election claims.
“I’m afraid he’ll run out of money before I ever see my five million,” Zeidman told Burnett.
During his testimony, Lindell said he never worried that anyone might actually win the challenge.
“No, because they have to show that it’s not from 2020 and it wasn’t,” Lindell said, chuckling.
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Jack Forrest contributed to this report.