US shooting survivor starts pillow fight with pro-Trump businessman

 

A US school shooting survivor has said he is launching a pillow-making company in an attempt to bankrupt a controversial Donald Trump ally who pushed baseless claims that November's presidential election was rigged.

David Hogg, 20, survived the 2018 mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida that left 17 people dead. He went on to co-found the March For Our Lives movement campaigning nationally for reform of America's lax gun control laws. 

In a series of tweets Thursday and Friday, Hogg said software engineer William LeGate had offered to help him start a pillow company with the aim of taking customers from the firm My Pillow.

My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell became a household name as the "My Pillow Guy" thanks to his hammy television ads in which he stars as the main pitchman. But he has stirred controversy thanks to his relationship with Trump.

Photographs taken of Lindell last month -- while Trump was still in office -- appeared to show the 59-year-old businessman carrying documents into the White House suggesting the then president could declare martial law after what he claimed was widespread vote rigging.

"What if we put MyPillow out of business @davidhogg111?" LeGate said on Twitter.

"Today we started a pillow company, tomorrow we change the world," Hogg later Tweeted. 

Hogg, who currently attends Harvard University, said the nascent pillow company did not yet have a name as they were still working on "trade mark stuff."

Twitter banned Lindell from the platform last month for "repeated violations of our Civic Integrity Policy."

Hogg is frequently targeted by conservative figures, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman who was sanctioned by the House of Representatives on Thursday for her extremist rhetoric.

In a 2019 video, she called Hogg a "coward" after she followed him down a Washington street and harangued him with questions about gun laws.