Mark-Cuban-Silicon Valley-buy-Donald-Trump – Newsweek

Ahead of the 2024 elections, the billionaire Mark Cuban warned on Sunday that one of the reasons some of the Silicon Valley community supports Donald Trump is that they know they “can buy” the former president.

Cuban, entrepreneur and ABC‘s Shark Tank TV star, supported the vice president Kamala Harris in interviews and on social media since she got the robe from the president Joe Biden and quickly strengthened Democratic Partynomination this summer after Biden withdrew from the election race.

In an interview with ABC News on Sunday. this week Host John Karl asked Cuban about “what’s going on” with some Trump-supporting Silicon Valley community members.

In response, Cuban noted two reasons why business people in the Silicon Valley community “know they can manipulate” Trump, adding that “if they give them money, they can buy him.”

“A lot of them started their support when Joe Biden was the candidate, and that’s understandable, you know, Joe Biden didn’t have a lot of reach in the Silicon Valley community… and that turned a lot of people off. But now when Kamala comes in, she has that opportunity, she talks to them,” Cuban said.

Adding: “Secondly, if you think back to when Donald Trump was first elected, we talked a lot about the adult in the room and the people we were going to depend on to kind of keep him within the baseline. I translate it this way: there were people who thought they could manipulate him, and I think that’s what often happened with people in the top management of Silicon Valley: they know that they are smarter than him, they know that they can manipulate him and that , if they give them money, they can buy. to him.”

Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign via email for comment.

Although Cuban said he was initially a fan of Trump’s candidacy when he first announced his intentions back in 2015, he has now become completely disillusioned with the former president. Cuban says Harris is a pro-business candidate who can best serve the interests of small businesses and the economy as a whole.

The Cuban previously told Newsweek that he considers Trump’s first term “bad,” warning that a second term will be “worse.” He also sees Harris as someone who will work with republicans and independent.

“She’s not an ideologue,” he said, calling her “much more stable” and “open.” In particular, Cuban believes Harris’ economic policies are good for the country, saying they will benefit everyday Americans and small businesses.

However, Karl then intervened, asking Cuban if “this is what happened to Elon Musk“, who has become an ardent Trump supporter.

Cuban responded, “I think he thinks he can manipulate him.”

This comes after Cuban eagerly took up Trump supporters and fellow billionaire Musk have defended Harris against their attacks over the past few months. Musk, CEO of the company Teslafounder SpaceX and owner X, formerly Twitterbecame one of Trump’s leading surrogates, and Cuban used X as a key platform to push back against Musk and Trump allies.

Meanwhile, quite recently Cuban poured cold water on him on the idea that Trump is a “great businessman” during an interview on CNN on Friday.

On Friday, CNN anchor Caitlan Collins asked Cuban if he would invest in Trump’s re-election campaign if he appeared on Shark Tanklisting some of the former president’s businesses selling Trump-branded shoes, coins, cryptocurrencies, and bibles, as well as parts of his costume.

Cuban responded: “No, he’s desperate. You sell these things only because you need to, because you need money. People think he is a great businessman. If the president’s job was to invest in real estate, choose curtains and light fixtures, he would probably be the most qualified. But that’s not true.”

He continued: “He is not a businessman. He failed early and often. And the worst thing about his business career is how many times he ripped off hardworking Americans.”