MyPillow founder Mike Lindell denies nod to neo-Nazis in new ad campaign

The MyPillow company and its founder, Mike Lindell, a far-right influencer and acolyte of Donald Trump, are continuing to run a promotion despite criticism that it utilizes numerical symbols associated with neo-Nazism.

The company has been touting a promotion for a pillow with a sale price of $14.88 and it was still on offer on Friday morning.

Apart from being an odd price on its face, the Anti-Defamation League has noted that “1488” is a numeric hate symbol – “14” being a nod to the “14 Words” white supremacist slogan: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children” and “88” being a code for “Heil Hitler”, as H is the eighth letter of the alphabet.

The company first introduced the promotion on 20 September and has continued to post about it on X, despite users on social media pointing its association with neo-Nazis.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow for the American Immigration Council, pointed out on X a day after the first MyPillow post about the promotion that it mirrored the numeric hate symbol.

A post from Seth Cotlar, a professor of history at Willamette University, on Bluesky said the promotion was a “disturbing wink at Nazis, wrapped in the seemingly innocuous, plausibly deniable form of an advertisement”.

“I doubt Lindell is behind this or would ever get the reference, but that doesn’t really matter,” Cotlar wrote.

Neo-Nazi groups have worn the “88” in public demonstrations, like one in September of last year in Orlando, Florida, where a group of neo-Nazi demonstrators wearing masks and red shirts and waving swastika flags were seen marching through an Orlando suburb.

When asked by the New York Post about the promotion, Lindell denied the allegations that the price is associated with the hate symbol and dismissed it as another attack on his company.

“I have no idea what this is all about,” Lindell told the New York Post. “We’ve done this many times before. It had nothing to do with whatever you guys are trying to make it out to be.”

On the conservative talkshow FlashPoint, Lindell said the company used “a bunch of price points” ending with $0.88, like $19.88, $18.88.

“Kind of like Walmart does when they have a sale,” he said.

The pillow company, founded by Lindell in 2009, has been mired in controversy over the last few years as Lindell became a far-right influencer after the 2020 election. Lindel has promoted conspiracy theories, including a fake cure for Covid and that the 2020 election was stolen, and is a staunch supporter of Donald Trump.

Lindell is facing a $1.3bn lawsuit from voting machine manufacturer Dominion for making defamatory false statements about the company to promote his pillows.

Lindell is facing another lawsuit from delivery company DHL for $800,000 of unpaid bills. Companies like Wayfair and Kohl’s stopped selling MyPillow in 2021, citing poor sales.