MyPillow Will Lay Off 150 Employees After Owner Mike Lindell Said Trump Tax Cut Was Creating An Economic Boom

MyPillow chief executive officer Mike Lindell has been one of the most vocal backers of Donald Trump in the business world, saying the president was “chosen by God” to hold his office — and that Trump’s tax cuts were creating an economic boom across the United States.

Now, just a few months later, Lindell’s company is planning to lay off 150 employees as it prepares for a new business venture. Lindell is coming under considerable criticism for this decision. As The Daily Beast reported, the Minnesota-based company is undergoing a restructuring, and will be launching an “online store for entrepreneurs to sell their products,” leading to job cuts for 150 employees.

Late last year, Lindell had been bragging that Trump’s tax cuts would be a boon to his employees, allowing him to give them raises of between 5 and 10 percent. In an op-ed last year for Alpha News, written at a time when Lindell was campaigning to help Republicans in midterm elections, the MyPillow owner said he was excited to elaborate as to what Trump’s economic policies had done for his company.

“On Thursday night when President Trump visits Rochester for a campaign rally, I’ll have the chance to tell an amazing story about how businesses and workers across our great state are growing in leaps and bounds — a result of the incredible growth in the Minnesota economy since Donald Trump sparked our great American comeback,” he wrote.

The news that MyPillow would be instituting layoffs — after its CEO had bragged about how the tax cuts would help his employees — was met with some criticism, especially among those critical of the Trump tax cuts. A recent report from The Center for Public Integrity noted that twice as many companies were paying nothing in taxes, after the Trump tax cuts went into effect, than had been tax neutral hitherto.

This included some giant companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Chevron Corp. The companies identified were able to zero out $79 billion in U.S. pretax income, the report noted.

“Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes, as the new 21 percent corporate tax rate requires, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion, blowing a $20.7 billion hole in the federal budget last year,” the report found.

After MyPillow's CEO credited Trump's tax cuts for economic boom, the company laid off 150 workers https://t.co/YHmLtnV3K9

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) May 10, 2019

The Trump tax cuts have also failed to be the political boon that many Republicans had hoped, with polling aggregator Real Clear Politics noting that overall approval of the tax cuts has dropped sharply.