Mike Lindell, Twitter account reinstated, resumes election fraud accusations
MINNEAPOLIS -- MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's Twitter account was reinstated Friday amid continuing similar actions from new Twitter head Elon Musk.
Lindell's Twitter account was suspended not once, but twice earlier in 2022 as Lindell continued to push baseless accusations of widespread election fraud. The second time he was suspended, in May, was after he started an account under a different name.
On Friday, Lindell's account was restored, as many other suspended accounts before his were, including that of former president Donald Trump. One of the accounts restored under Musk, one belonging to Kanye West, was re-suspended after West tweeted an image involving a Nazi swastika.
The Minnesotan Lindell rose to become a national political figure during the Trump presidency. Following Trump's defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election, Lindell was one of Trump's most outspoken allies who claimed that the election was stolen.
Upon the restoration of his account, Lindell immediately picked up where he left off, tweeting "Thank you @elonmusk and by the way MELT DOWN THE ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES AND TURN THEM INTO PRISON BARS!"
Lindell's reinstatement comes on the heels of Musk's Twitter suspending a number of journalists, among them reporters working for The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America and other outlets.
In February, Dominion Voting Systems sued Lindell for defamation over his election fraud claims, seeking over $1.3 billion in damages.
Lindell's original Twitter account was permanently banned in January 2021 after he continued to perpetuate the baseless claim that Trump won the 2020 election. At the time Twitter said that it decided to ban Lindell due to "repeated violations" of its civic integrity policy.
Last Month, Lindell said he wanted to run for the RNC chair following the results of the 2022 midterms.
Lindell, who made the announcement on an online show hosted by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, said in an interview with CBS News that he was unsatisfied with the party's performances in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections – in which the Republican Party failed to maintain or regain control of both houses of the federal legislature.