Fox News recently agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought after Fox aired numerous segments with guests suggesting Dominion machines were used to steal the 2020 presidential election. “It’s just easier for our customers to use something that’s not Dominion,” John Poulos, Dominion’s CEO, told Time in a recent interview. “We just know that our business ultimately goes to zero.” Currently, Dominion has six other pending defamation cases against Newsmax and One America News, as well as several allies of former President Donald Trump, including Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Patrick Byrne, and Mike Lindell. “It basically put us into a death spiral,” Poulos says of the alleged defamation. “And by accusing us of the greatest American crime in history, it turned us, as one of our customers has described, [into] the most demonized brand in the United States.” Dominion products are used in 28 states. Shortly after the 2020 election, multiple lawsuits were filed which included testimony from experts who said that the voting machines had vulnerabilities, including being connected to the internet. Multiple people alleged that the machines switched votes from Trump to President Joe Biden. Poulos is not sure if the company will be able to change public perception enough to thrive, but says the Fox settlement will help re-shape public opinion. “We really hope that this puts an end to trusted media putting ratings and profits above the pursuit of the truth,” he said. Though election impropriety claims were largely made by Republicans after the 2020 election, both political parties have a history of questioning the outcomes of elections they lose. One of Trump’s impeachment attorneys released a supercut of multiple Democrats questioning the outcome of the 2016 election, while arguing against the election’s certification.One month after reaching a historic settlement in a defamation case, the head of Dominion Voting Systems, which supplies electronic voting machines to many jurisdictions across the U.S., says his company will likely go under because of the reputational damage sustained after the 2020 election.
