In the tranquil heartbeat of the Minnesota suburbs, a once thriving warehouse stands vacant; a poignant symbol of the company it once housed—MyPillow. As of Wednesday, a court order mandated the eviction of the personal care company from the property, its occupancy considered no more than a formality in light of the landlord’s desire to reclaim dominion over the site.
Enveloped in the sprawling precincts of Minneapolis, the warehouse had been a keystone in the operational function of MyPillow, yet it appears the company’s egress was less a forced extraction and more a mutually advantageous move. Mike Lindell, contentious election critic and founder of MyPillow, rebuffed claims that his business’s eviction was symptomatic of a deteriorating financial condition. Quite to the contrary, Lindell was quick to elaborate on MyPillow’s fiscal rebound following a prior year fraught with credit curtailment and the consequent interruption of revenue after prominent national retailers severed their ties with the company.
Last year’s fiscal hiccup was allegorically adjusted with the needle of success threading the fabric of MyPillow’s resurgence. On that note, Lindell robustly countered concerns, stating emphatically, “We’re fine.”
However, February dealt Lindell a considerable blow in the form of a court ruling affirming a $5 million arbitration award favoring a software engineer who debunked data assumed to incriminate China as the architects of the 2020 U.S. presidential election outcome favoring Joe Biden. Met with disappointment from Fox News, which ceased running MyPillow commercials, Lindell had already weathered the corporate media storm, acknowledging a contended billing dispute in January.
But a new challenge presented itself when Lindell made it known that MyPillow owed roughly $217,000 in rent to Delaware-based First Industrial LP for the Shakopee-based facility. Underlining the obsolescence of the warehouse for MyPillow purposes, the company had vacated its remaining assets from the premise in June prior, subsequently subleasing the space to a secondary company until year’s end.
After the initial sublease agreement guttered out, a tentative deal with another company to take up occupancy from January collapsed, leaving Lindell and his company in a state of limbo. MyPillow floated the idea of scouting for a replacement tenant, but the landlord rebuffed this, favoring the path of repossessing the warehouse. The outstanding $217,000 was attributed to unpaid rent for January and February, Lindell clarified, adding that MyPillow continued to engage leases elsewhere.
At Tuesday’s hearing in Scott County Court, presided over by Judge Caroline Lennon, no opposition was mounted by MyPillow against the warehouse owner’s request for a formal eviction. Attorney Sara Filo, counsel for First Industrial, expressed a desire to explore the eviction path by the book given MyPillow’s tacit vacatory stances.
Simultaneously, hovering over Lindell’s head like a Damocles sword are the persistent claims by former President Donald Trump that the 2020 presidential election results were a fraudulent construct. These allegations, unabatedly perpetuated by Lindell, implicate rigged voting machine systems intertwined with defamation lawsuits brought forward by two voting machine companies. Meanwhile, previous defense attorneys for Lindell have bowed out, citing unpaid dues.
