Mike Lindell is back on Twitter. From conspiracy theories to attempting to dodge a ban — here's why he was kicked off in the first place.
- MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell had his Twitter account reinstated after Elon Musk's takeover.
- Lindell was permanently suspended from the social media platform in January 2021.
Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, and a notorious conspiracy theorist had his Twitter account reinstated last week.
The return of the banned account follows a string of similar moves by Twitter's new owner Elon Musk, who has recently reinstated other banned users including Donald Trump, Rogan O'Handley, and Emerald Robinson.
Lindell was permanently suspended from the social media platform in January 2021 — here's why.
Election misinformation
The pillow salesman came back swinging with his first tweet on December 16, calling for voting machines to be melted down and turned into prison bars,
The tweet referenced baseless theories he promoted that rigged voting machines were used to tamper with the results of the 2020 election.
Lindell repeated similar election-fraud claims in early 2021, and once suggested Trump should impose "martial law."
The promotion of some of these unfounded theories eventually led to his Twitter suspension. Twitter cited him as breaching the platform's civic-integrity policy and violating the platform's policy on misinformation.
A close ally of Trump, Lindell reportedly offered support and advice to the former president in his final days in office. He even once tweeted that some Georgia voters should "go to prison" as a punishment for Joe Biden's win in the state.
Lindell has continued to fund a number initiatives that push voter fraud conspiracy theories. In February, he released a pro-Trump documentary called "Absolute Proof," and in June announced he was funding a feature-length film about the alleged voter fraud.
Evasion ban
Lindell briefly re-emerged on the social-media platform in May after he seemingly created an alternative Twitter account.
The MyPillow CEO set up the new account under a separate handle, @MikeJLindell. The account was quickly suspended under Twitter's ban evasion policy, which prohibits permanently suspended users from trying to work around bans.
Lindell has campaigned to get his Twitter account back for some time. He told ex-White House advisor Steve Bannon on a November podcast that he would drop everything to fly off and speak to Elon Musk about reversing his Twitter ban.
He said he would "do whatever it takes" to get his account back, adding: "And if you're gonna have a platform of free speech now and without this cancel culture, you can't just say anybody that talked about machines can't be on it."
Since being removed from Twitter, Lindell has also launched his own social media platform, Frank Social, and a streaming platform called Frank Speech.
Insider contacted representatives for Lindell and Twitter for comment but did not immediately hear back.