Pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell returns to Twitter with a call to melt down voting machines

The pillow salesman was permanently banned from the platform in 2021 after repeatedly amplifying bogus claims about the 2020 election

Election fraud conspiracy theorist and pillow salesman Mike Lindell has returned to Twitter, a platform from which he was permanently suspended for repeatedly violating the social media company’s civic integrity policies.

The CEO of MyPillow – a prominent election fraud conspiracy theorist who continues to baselessly assert that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump – thanked Elon Musk for his ability to return, hours after Twitter’s new owner banned several journalists who have scrutinised one of the world’s wealthiest men and the massively influential platform that he now runs.

Twitter policy forbids “manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes” which includes “posting or sharing content that may suppress participation or mislead people about when, where, or how to participate in a civic process.” Content that contains “false or misleading information about civic processes” may also be suppressed or labeled.

The company says it will “label or remove false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election or other civic process,” which includes but is not limited to baseless claims about election rigging or the certification of election results, which Mr Lindell has spent the last three years raging against on his own platforms, at conferences, in blocks of airtime he purchased on far-right TV networks, and elsewhere.

Mr Lindell’s first post on 16 December calls to “MELT DOWN THE ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES AND TURN THEM INTO PRISON BARS”. He is currently being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for $1.3bn for defamation.

In October, the US Supreme Court rejected his attempt to dismiss the suit.

A lower-court ruling last year found that Mr Lindell’s claims are “inherently improbable, that his sources are unreliable, and that he has failed to acknowledge the validity of countervailing evidence.”

The ruling also noted that Mr Lindell “told audiences to purchase MyPillow products after making his claims of election fraud and providing MyPillow promotional codes related to those theories.”

Dominion “has adequately alleged that Lindell made his claims knowing that they were false or with reckless disregard for the truth,” according to the ruling.

Mr Lindell was notably present for a White House meeting on 15 Janury 2021, days before Joe Biden would enter office. Mr Lindell was seen leaving the White House carrying pages of notes that suggested he was asking Mr Trump to considering invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy the US military and use “martial law” to remain in office.

He was permanently suspended from the platform in January 2021, which he later circumvented by posting from the MyPillow account, calling for then-CEO Jack Doesey to “be put in prison”. That account was also banned for violating the company’s policy on ban evasion.

Mr Lindell would later launch his own platform, which he initially described as a cross between YouTube and Twitter that was overwhelmed with technical issues at its launch and ultimately resembled a website that was used to host his own content without any social networking features. He later used it to host his two-hour film amplifying debunked and baseless conspiracy theories about the election.

He has since launched a longshot bid to run for chair of the Republican National Committee.