Mark Cuban told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that business leaders are keeping quiet on former President Donald Trump out of fear he’ll target them and retaliate in a second term.
“You don’t hear a whole lot of CEOs, other than Elon Musk, particularly of large companies, coming out and supporting him, for that very reason,” Cuban said after Maddow called Trump “radioactive” to the business community, noting his public criticisms of Amazon and Jeff Bezos during his first term.
Cuban claimed other than Elon Musk, most CEOs are afraid to comment at all on the election out of fear that Trump wins next month. Cuban is a campaign surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris. He’s often mocked Musk and talked about quickly growing out of his brief Trump support in 2016.
“You don’t hear them condemning him, because they’re worried about his retribution or his vengeance. But, literally, there’s been nobody that I know other than Elon, that has come out in support of him,” the Shark Tank investor said.
Cuban argued Trump is the worst candidate in the race for businesses thanks to his promise to increase tariffs. He claimed business leaders who are supporting Trump are simply doing so to “manipulate” his views on things like crypto.
“It is very transactional and for the right amount you can guide policy. I think you saw that with crypto,” he said. “You know, there’s different types of crypto and let me just say I am a huge fan of crypto and its utility. I was for Bitcoin and Ethereum, etc., but there’s a lot of large-scale Bitcoin owners like the Winklevoss twins who have made significant donations in an effort to manipulate his perception of crypto to their benefit and so I think that is the perfect example of him being transactional and being manipulated.”
Watch above via MSNBC.
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