Michael J. Lindell is an American entrepreneur who has been causing controversy in the last few months due to his outspoken support for Donald Trump. The pillow magnate, who started his company MyPillow in 2004 after struggling with insomnia, has previously battled drug addiction, which almost cost him his fledgling business. His wife left him and he lost his house, but he managed to quit drugs. In fact, after Lindell dedicated himself to the the pillow manufacturer, expanding its range of products to beds, linen and even pet beds, the Minnesota-based business thrived. Lindell was reported to be worth $300 million (£213m) in 2020. His is a classic 'rock bottom to riches' tale.
However, Lindell's support of Donald Trump has now started to affect the business and get him into legal trouble. Click or scroll on to find out why.
Lindell has repeatedly questioned the result of the 2020 election and this week Dominion Voting Systems has started legal action against the entrepreneur, suing Lindell for $1.3 billion (£926m) in damages over his claims that the election was rigged. Lindell maintained his support of Trump despite the Capitol siege on 6 January, going as far to describe the event as "very peaceful". Lindell's comments and spreading of "misinformation" on Twitter have since led him to be permanently banned from the social media platform, and when he tried to keep tweeting from the MyPillow business account Twitter took that account down too. His political views have even led retailers including Bed, Bath & Beyond, Kohl's and JC Penney to stop selling his MyPillow products. And an interview on TV station Newsmax was abruptly ended when anchor Bob Sellers walked off set when Lindell repeated his election fraud claims.
Michael J. Lindell is certainly a divisive figure, but he's not the only super-rich person to have courted controversy. Click or scroll through to discover some other successful people who have polarised public opinion...
John Paul (better known as J. Paul) Getty's father was George Getty, who'd made multi-millions from oil. But after his father loaned J. Paul some money to buy up oil leases at rock-bottom prices in Oklahoma's 'red-bed' area, J. Paul went on to sell the leases at a massively marked-up premium. By the age of 23 he had made his first $1 million, and the oil mogul, and workaholic, expanded his fortune over the years until he became the richest person in the world. But his story is not without controversy. He was married and divorced five times, the final time being in 1958 from his marriage to nightclub singer Louise Dudley 'Teddy' Lynch, whose son with Getty, Timothy, died aged 12 from a brain tumour. Louise Getty later recounted that J. Paul had scolded her for spending too much money on the boy's cancer treatment.
But perhaps the biggest controversy surrounding J. Paul was his reaction to the kidnapping of his grandson John Paul III (pictured centre) in Rome in June 1973. 'Ndrangheta gangsters demanded a ransom payment of $17 million (£6.8m), $94 million (£68m) in today's money, for his safe release, but the famously stingy elder Getty refused to pay on the basis that "I have 14 other grandchildren and if I pay one penny now, then I'll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren." The ransom payment was the equivalent of just one day's output from J. Paul's oil fields. J. Paul finally agreed to pay part of a reduced ransom of $2.9 million (£1.2m), $16 million (£11.6m) in today's money, and lent his son John Paul Getty Jr. the rest of the cash to be paid back with interest, but only after the kidnappers sent his grandson's cut off ear to a newspaper.
Read more about the Getty family's tragedies here
Back in 2012 Chao announced he would pay $65 million (£51m) to any man who could win the heart of his daughter (pictured), despite the fact that she is gay and married to her long-term partner. He increased the figure to $180 million (£142m) two years later, but has thankfully now accepted her sexuality. The billionaire, who is a famed playboy himself, said in 2016: "It's her life. She decides about her private life."
As the 20th richest person in Australia according to Forbes, Clive Palmer has a net worth of $2.8 billion (£2bn). He earned big as a real estate agent during the Gold Coast property boom in the 1980s, and went on to found three successful mining companies. Often branded Australia's Donald Trump, he even made the move into politics in recent years.
In 2013 Palmer opened a park filled with robotic dinosaurs to the public. When low visitor numbers forced the resort – called Palmersaurus – to close two years later, he was said to be considering bringing real dinosaurs back to life. Despite being in talks with the scientists who cloned Dolly the sheep, the project seems to have lost all momentum. Let's hope his next venture – a functioning replica of the Titanic, aka 'Titanic II', due to set sail in 2022 – is more successful.
Now the richest person in the world according to Bloomberg, with a current net worth of $199 billion (£141bn), South Africa-born Elon Musk is as much known for causing controversy as for his business success. From his personal life, where he married and divorced British actress Talulah Riley twice and has now named his seventh child (his first with Canadian singer Grimes, pictured) the highly unusual X Æ A-12, to his professional achievements which include putting chips in pigs' brains, Musk is never far from the headlines.
Many of Musk's controversies play out on Twitter, and in 2018 Tesla was fined $20 million (£16.5m) and Musk lost his role as Tesla chairperson after the US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Musk for posting tweets claiming that he could buy out stockholders at $420 (£350) a share, despite not having secured the funding. On 6 March 2020 his tweets caused controversy again when he tweeted "the coronavirus panic is dumb" just five days before the World Health Organization declared coronavirus a pandemic. He later offered to buy ventilators for hospitals in New York and other COVID hotspots. However, this positive contribution was offset by his tweet on 11 May 2020 when Musk announced that he would be reopening his Tesla factory in Fremont, California in defiance of local public health orders. Musk's Twitter account drew more attention last summer when the billionaire tweeted "I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house." This was followed by another tweet that "My gf @Grimezsz is mad at me". He also caused Tesla's stock price to temporarily tank when he tweeted "Tesla stock price is too high imo".
Gina Rinehart is the richest person in Australia, with a net worth of $24.3 billion (£17.3bn), which she built off the back of iron mining. Although she took over her father’s company, Hancock Prospecting, after his death in 1992, she turned it around from a debt-laden company into a highly-profitable operation, so it’s fair to say her wealth is self-made. It’s not just mining that’s responsible for her wealth. Under her direction, the Hancock Group began to invest in other industries, including coal, property, beef and dairy – it’s currently Australia’s second biggest beef producer with a herd of 320,000 cattle.
However, Rinehart is something of a controversial figure, for example she holds strong views on what she believes to be excessive regulation and taxation of resources. But perhaps most famously she has fought a high-profile legal battle with three of her four children over their $5 billion trust fund, which was established by her father. All four of her kids were supposed to received a portion of the fund when the youngest, Ginia, turned 25, but four days before her youngest daughter's birthday, Rinehart said that they'd be bankrupted if they took the money due to capital gains taxes. But when they asked for evidence Rinehart couldn't provide it. This led her three eldest children to take her to court, accusing her of making changes to the trust, orchestrating legal documents and asking them to sign documents when they were young. Although eldest daughter Bianca was made trustee in 2015, she sued her mother for underpaying on the trust, and the legal battle continues today.
Now read: Billionaire boats to blow your mind – and your wallet