MyPillow, one of the few remaining advertisers frequently featured on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, is laying off more than 100 employees not even a year after the company’s founder praised President Donald Trump for creating a “booming economy.”
In a statement to HuffPost, Mike Lindell, inventor and CEO of MyPillow, told us via email that he’s in the process of launching an “online store for entrepreneurs and inventors to sell their products.”
“As we prepare for the launch of MyStore.com, we are changing the layout of our Shakopee [Minnesota] factories so the fulfillment and shipping of all MyStore products can happen here,” he says, before adding that the “new direction” means layoffs for about 150 employees.
Lindell said that while he values “each and every one of my employees,” “this is what is best right now for the future of MyPillow and to prepare for the launch of MyStore.com.”
This move from Lindell comes less than a year after a June 2018 op-ed he penned for the Duluth News-Tribune where he celebrated Trump’s economic policies in a piece titled, “Rest easy, Minnesota; Trump is winning for us.”
“After more than 500 days with Donald Trump as our president — with record-low unemployment and a booming economy — it’s clear, Minnesota, that we can rest easy,” wrote Lindell in the op-ed.
“As a proud American business owner, I have seen firsthand the positive changes President Trump’s policies are bringing to our state. Because of the president’s historic tax cuts, I was able to give my employees an immediate across-the-board pay raise to help fuel their lives and advance their careers.”
A spokesperson for Lindell told HuffPost via email that “the layoffs have nothing to do with what he talked about in that op-ed.”
“This is actually an expansion, a new venture. But in order to prepare for it, he needed to restructure his factories, and as such, about 150 employees are [to] be out of work while that happens,” the spokesperson said. “He expects to be hiring again in the next eight weeks and when MyStore.com is up and running, he expects to be creating even more job opportunities.”
MyPillow often advertises on Fox News and has done so a whopping 1,100 times since Jan. 1. As reporter Jordan Uhl notes, that’s “more than almost every other advertiser, including ramping up advertisements on costly primetime shows that saw advertisers leave due to rhetoric.”