Latest news with #CyberSymposium
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Court rules MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell does not have to pay out $5 million over ‘Prove Mike Wrong' stunt
MyPillow founder Mike Lindell does not have to pay $5 million to a software developer who tried to disprove his 2020 election interference claims, a federal appeals court ruled. Lindell, widely known as 'MyPillow Guy,' claimed that China interfered with the 2020 election results and he had evidence to back it up. He then launched a 'Prove Mike Wrong Challenge,' a stunt in which contestants tried to debunk his evidence, offering $5 million to anyone who could do it. The judges in Lindell's stunt didn't believe Robert Zeidman, a software developer who participated, proved his case against Lindell's claim, but an arbitration panel found that he won the challenge and ordered Lindell to pay him his winnings. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the panel's decision, finding 'the arbitrators exceeded their powers.' 'It's a great day for our country,' Lindell told the Associated Press. 'This is a big win. It opens the door to getting rid of these electronic voting machines and getting paper ballots, hand-counted.' Lindell hosted a 'Cyber Symposium' in South Dakota in August 2021, when he showed data that he claimed to prove election interference. He then dared skeptics to participate in the 'Prove Mike Wrong Challenge,' offering the $5 million award. Zeidman, who had been invited to the symposium, entered the challenge and submitted a 15-page report against his claims. The judge's disagreed and said he did not prove Lindell wrong. The arbitration panel disagreed, finding that the software developer had met that requirement and won the challenge by pointing out that Lindell's so-called evidence didn't contain voting machines' data. Lindell then filed a legal challenge to the judement. The appeals court found that the panel 'effectively amended' the challenge's rules, handing Lindell a victory. 'From the four corners of the Challenge contract as defined by the Official Rules, there is no way to read 'information related to the November 2020 election' as meaning only information that is packet capture data,' the appeals court found. Zeidman, who previously told the New York Times that he is a Republican and voted for Donald Trump twice, believed Lindell's claims posed a danger to democracy. 'A false narrative about election fraud is just really damaging to this country,' he told the Times. Last month, a federal jury in Colorado found that Lindell defamed Eric Coomer, the former security and product strategy director at Dominion Voting Systems, when he accused him of treason. Lindell was ordered to pay Coomer $2.3 million in damages — a ruling that the MyPillow CEO said he plans to appeal.
Gizmodo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Gizmodo
Court Rules Mike Lindell Doesn't Have to Pay $5 Million in Hacked Voting Machine Bet
Mike Lindell, the founder and CEO of MyPillow, could be considered a loser in many ways, but not in a way that will cost him $5 million. The New York Times reports that a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that Lindell will not have to pay out the prize money for his 'Prove Mike Wrong' challenge, which offered up a $5 million reward to anyone who could sufficiently debunk his baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Lindell offered up the prize money in 2021 during his 'Cyber Symposium' event that he held in South Dakota, in which he laid out his 'evidence' to prove that China hacked US voting machines and changed votes. Lindell invited cybersecurity experts to the event and offered up the prize money to anyone in attendance who could prove his findings to be inaccurate—a challenge that software engineer Robert Zeidman took on. If you assume that proving Lindell's findings are false would be easy, you're not wrong. Lindell's argument primarily hung on the idea that data from voting machines could be seen moving across Chinese servers. According to Zeidman's account, he determined that Lindell's files of 'proof' that votes were being manipulated by China were, in fact, a collection of nonsense data. Zeidman told Politico that the supposed 'evidence' contained no voting machine packet capture data that would have shown the votes being transferred to Chinese servers. So he wrote up his report, submitted it, and sat back and waited for his $5 million payday. The hard part, it turns out, is getting conspiracy theorists to admit they are wrong. Zeidman said he never heard from Lindell and had to file an arbitration lawsuit to have a court adjudicate whether he actually debunked the MyPillow guy's findings. In 2023, a private arbitration panel ruled in Zeidman's favor, determining that he proved 'unequivocally' that Lindell's data did not reflect 2020 election data. Lindell was given 30 days to pay up. Now it looks like that payday will probably never come. Lindell appealed the ruling and got a decision in his favor, thanks to the fact that he provided extremely broad rules that apparently gave him lots of outs. 'From the four corners of the Challenge contract as defined by the Official Rules, there is no way to read 'information related to the November 2020 election' as meaning only information that is packet capture data,' the court ruled. 'It's a great day for our country,' Lindell told the Times, as if the entire United States was holding its breath, hoping that Mr. MyPillow wouldn't have to give up any of his money. While Lindell seems to have wriggled out of this case for now, he'll still have plenty more lawyer fees in front of him. Earlier this year, a court ruled that he must pay $2.3 million to a former employee of Dominion Voting Systems after Lindell called the worker a 'traitor to the United States.' Lindell plans to appeal that one, too.
The Independent
4 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
Court rules MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell does not have to pay out $5 million over ‘Prove Mike Wrong' stunt
MyPillow founder Mike Lindell does not have to pay $5 million to a software developer who tried to disprove his 2020 election interference claims, a federal appeals court ruled. Lindell, widely known as 'MyPillow Guy,' claimed that China interfered with the 2020 election results and he had evidence to back it up. He then launched a 'Prove Mike Wrong Challenge,' a stunt in which contestants tried to debunk his evidence, offering $5 million to anyone who could do it. The judges in Lindell's stunt didn't believe Robert Zeidman, a software developer who participated, proved his case against Lindell's claim, but an arbitration panel found that he won the challenge and ordered Lindell to pay him his winnings. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the panel's decision, finding 'the arbitrators exceeded their powers.' 'It's a great day for our country,' Lindell told the Associated Press. 'This is a big win. It opens the door to getting rid of these electronic voting machines and getting paper ballots, hand-counted.' Lindell hosted a 'Cyber Symposium' in South Dakota in August 2021, when he showed data that he claimed to prove election interference. He then dared skeptics to participate in the 'Prove Mike Wrong Challenge,' offering the $5 million award. Zeidman, who had been invited to the symposium, entered the challenge and submitted a 15-page report against his claims. The judge's disagreed and said he did not prove Lindell wrong. The arbitration panel disagreed, finding that the software developer had met that requirement and won the challenge by pointing out that Lindell's so-called evidence didn't contain voting machines' data. Lindell then filed a legal challenge to the judement. The appeals court found that the panel 'effectively amended' the challenge's rules, handing Lindell a victory. 'From the four corners of the Challenge contract as defined by the Official Rules, there is no way to read 'information related to the November 2020 election' as meaning only information that is packet capture data,' the appeals court found. Zeidman, who previously told the New York Times that he is a Republican and voted for Donald Trump twice, believed Lindell's claims posed a danger to democracy. 'A false narrative about election fraud is just really damaging to this country,' he told the Times. Last month, a federal jury in Colorado found that Lindell defamed Eric Coomer, the former security and product strategy director at Dominion Voting Systems, when he accused him of treason. Lindell was ordered to pay Coomer $2.3 million in damages — a ruling that the MyPillow CEO said he plans to appeal.
Boston Globe
4 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Mike Lindell celebrates victory after appeals court voids $5M award in election data dispute
Lindell, one of the country's most prominent propagators of false claims that the 2020 election was a fraud, lost in a different case in Colorado last month. A jury ruled that Lindell defamed a former employee of a voting equipment company by accusing him of treason, and awarded $2.3 million in damages. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Lindell said he is appealing, and that he actually considers the verdict a victory because MyPillow itself wasn't found liable. Advertisement President Trump and his allies lost more than 50 court cases trying to overturn the 2020 election results, and his own attorney general at the time said there was no indication of wide-scale fraud. As part of a 'Cyber Symposium' Lindell hosted in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 2021, Lindell offered $5 million for anyone who could prove that 'packet captures' and other data he released there were not valid data from the 2020 election. Advertisement Zeidman entered a 15-page report that he said proved the data wasn't what Lindell claimed. Contest judges declined to declare Zeidman a winner, so he filed for arbitration under the contest rules. A panel of three arbitrators, including one named by Lindell, concluded that Zeidman had satisfied the rules and awarded him $5 million. US District Judge John Tunheim affirmed the award last year. He expressed concern about how the arbitrators interpreted what he called a 'poorly written contract,' but he said courts have only limited authority to overrule arbitration awards and ordered Lindell to pay up. But the appeals court ruled Wednesday that the arbitrators went beyond the contractual language of the official contest rules in deciding how to construe them, instead of sticking to the document itself. The appeals court said the rules were unambiguous, even if they might have favored Lindell. 'Whatever one might think of the logic of the panel's reasoning, it is contrary to Minnesota law. ... Fair or not, agreed-to contract terms may not be modified by the panel or by this court,' the appeals court wrote, and sent the case back to the lower court with instructions to vacate the $5 million award. Zeidman attorney Brian Glasser urged people to read the arbitrators' decision and 'judge for themselves if the Eight Circuit's decision today is more persuasive, or rings in truth louder, than the unanimous contrary decision of three arbitrators who heard all the evidence, including one appointed by Mr. Lindell.'
Epoch Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Epoch Times
Mike Lindell Wins Appeal in Lawsuit Over $5 Million Election Contest
The MyPillow CEO told news outlets this week he was pleased with the ruling. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell gestures as supporters of President Donald Trump gather outside Capital One Arena for a rally a day before he is scheduled to be inaugurated for a second term, in Washington on Jan. 19, 2025. REUTERS/Daniel Cole/File Photo MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell gestures as supporters of President Donald Trump gather outside Capital One Arena for a rally a day before he is scheduled to be inaugurated for a second term, in Washington on Jan. 19, 2025. REUTERS/Daniel Cole/File Photo A U.S. appeals court threw out a lower court order that required MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to pay $5 million to a man who said he debunked Lindell's arguments about fraud during the 2020 general election, as part of a contest that was set up by the pillow magnate. The Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis said in a ruling on Wednesday that an arbitration panel improperly interpreted the rules of a contest Lindell set up and oversaw. The contest challenged anyone to disprove his claims that President Donald Trump won the election. It reversed a federal judge's order that confirmed the arbitrator's award to Robert Zeidman, a software developer who said he proved Lindell wrong. Story continues below advertisement Lindell created the challenge as part of an effort to establish that then-presidential candidate Joe Biden actually lost to Trump during the 2020 election, which Trump and Lindell said was marred by fraud. As part of a 2021 'Cyber Symposium' Lindell hosted in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, he offered $5 million to anyone who could prove that 'packet captures,' and other data he released there, were not valid data from the 2020 election. Zeidman entered a 15-page report that he claimed proved the data wasn't what Lindell claimed. Contest judges declined to declare Zeidman a winner, so he filed for arbitration under the contest rules. A panel of three arbitrators concluded that Zeidman had satisfied the rules and awarded him $5 million. But appeals court Judges James Loken, Lavenski Smith, and L. Steven Grasz said in their Wednesday order that the arbitration panel improperly amended the contest's contract terms, putting new obligations on Lindell concerning the data at issue. Story continues below advertisement 'Fair or not, agreed-to contract terms may not be modified by the panel or by this court,' the appeals court said in its Wednesday order. 'Whatever one might think of the logic of the panel's reasoning, it is contrary to Minnesota law.' The judges then remanded the case to the lower court with instructions to vacate the award to Zeidman. Previously, U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim ruled in favor of Zeidman and wrote in his order that in certain cases, 'arbitration awards are not entirely free from judicial review,' and that the arbitration panel 'did not modify the contract or exceed its scope' by giving the award to him. 'Even though the Court may have reached a different outcome given an independent initial review of the information, the Court fails to identify evidence that the panel exceeded its authority. Under the Court's narrow review, it will confirm the arbitration award,' the judge added. Story continues below advertisement Lindell and his attorneys later appealed the judgment to the Eighth Circuit. In documents submitted to the appeals court in mid-2024, Zeidman's attorneys argued that Lindell's appeal of Tunheim's order is meritless because 'neither the record nor the law supports Lindell's claim that the district court erred.' 'To the contrary, the record establishes the Panel acted within its authority, considered evidence, applied the law, and issued an award consistent with the parties' agreement,' the attorneys added. 'A contrary result in this case would create unwarranted uncertainty about the finality of arbitrators' decisions.' Story continues below advertisement In response, Lindell told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday, 'All I want to do is secure our elections—period.' 'It's a great day for our country,' Lindell also said in an interview with The Associated Press. 'This is a big win,' he said, adding that the appeals court order could lead to widespread usage of 'paper ballots' that are 'hand-counted' in elections. The Epoch Times contacted Lindell's attorneys for additional comment on Thursday. Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
