In 2021, Mike Lindell claimed to be “very happy” to learn that Dominion Voting Systems was suing him for $1.3 billion. Joyful. That’s a strange response from someone facing a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit. However, Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and one of the most outspoken proponents of 2020 election denialism, has never exactly reacted to pressure in the manner that most people would anticipate. That lawsuit has been dropped after four years. Not triumphant, not defeated. Just… done.
After being purchased by former Republican elections director Scott Leiendecker in October 2025, the Dominion Voting Systems company—now known as Liberty Votes—quietly consented to drop the case. Each party will pay for their own legal fees. The terms of the settlement are kept private. No verdict was reached in court, no money was transferred in public, and neither side has said anything more than the bare minimum.
Lindell described it as a “big relief.” Practically speaking, it’s difficult to dispute that. He has been struggling financially for years—he told the Associated Press in 2023 that he was practically broke—and having a $1.3 billion lawsuit looming over a political campaign is about as comfortable as it sounds. He is a candidate for governor of Minnesota. “I can now run for governor, win governor, and not have to have in the back of my mind a worry about a $1.3 billion lawsuit,” he said following the announcement.
However, the conclusion has an almost depressing quality. A simple but grave accusation served as the foundation for Dominion’s legal strategy: Lindell disseminated conspiracy theories about their voting machines while knowing they were untrue, and he used the lies, at least partially, to sell merchandise. One man’s tweets weren’t the only aspect of the case. It was meant to be a response to the type of false information that circulated in conservative media in the weeks following the 2020 election. And now it concludes with a shrug and a confidential agreement.
It’s important to keep in mind that Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox News had a very different, or at least more obvious, conclusion. In 2023, Fox settled for $787.5 million. Never one to pass up a chance, Lindell saw the difference almost right away. He remarked, “I wonder what Fox News thinks when they settled for $787 million.” Perhaps they ought to have waited. It’s really unclear if that’s bluster, sincere contentment, or something in between.
However, the story of the Mike Lindell lawsuit is far from over. A jury determined that Lindell had personally defamed a former Dominion director, and they awarded him $2.3 million in damages. In a separate ruling, a federal judge found that Lindell had defamed voting machine manufacturer Smartmatic by making similar false allegations; damages in that case are still pending. He had previously filed what the court deemed a “frivolous” countersuit and was ordered to pay Smartmatic over $50,000 in sanctions. Additionally, a court ordered him to pay DHL $780,000 in January 2025 due to a MyPillow contract dispute.
It doesn’t paint a picture of someone who completely avoided responsibility. It’s more complicated than that; it’s a patchwork of court decisions, some of which have been quietly resolved and some of which are still pending. Lindell is now turning his attention to Minnesota politics while the financial and legal burden of the previous few years continues to weigh on him.
For its part, Dominion has already, quite literally, moved on. The company appears more interested in reestablishing itself in the market than in legal disputes under its new name and ownership. No one is formally stating whether that change had an impact on the Lindell case’s dismissal. The new leadership may have simply concluded that the battle wasn’t worth pursuing. It’s also possible that the settlement contained clauses that were never made public.
There is no doubt that the Mike Lindell lawsuit, which was initially presented as one of the pivotal court cases involving disinformation during the 2020 election, concluded without the clarity that anyone hoping for a final decision most likely desired.
