No, Mark Cuban’s net worth didn't fall $1 billion. That’s satire | Fact check
The claim: Mark Cuban’s net worth dropped by $1 billion after Harris endorsement
A Nov. 4 Threads post (direct link, archive link) shows side-by-side images of billionaire Mark Cuban and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Mark Cuban’s Net Worth Takes a $1 Billion Hit After Controversial Endorsement,” reads the post.
It was liked more than 800 times in three days.
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Our rating: False
The claim originated on a satirical website. No credible reports support the claim that Cuban’s net worth went down by $1 billion after he showed support for Harris.
Claim about Cuban’s net worth originated as satire
Cuban, the former Dallas Mavericks majority owner and “Shark Tank” judge, was a vocal supporter of Harris’ presidential campaign, saying she “would make a better president” than President-elect Donald Trump. In the race's final weeks, Cuban campaigned for Harris in Arizona and appeared with her at rallies in Wisconsin.
However, there is no evidence that Cuban’s net worth has sharply declined because he supported Harris. There are no credible news reports about such a precipitous drop in his wealth.
The claim was posted by a satirical account called SpaceX Fanclub. The account's bio states, "We post SATIRE, nothing on this page is real." The post links to a Nov. 2 article on the website Esspots that is also labeled as satire.
The post is an example of what could be called "stolen satire," where claims written as satire and presented that way originally are reposted in a way that makes them appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, as was the case here.
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Cuban’s net worth was $5.7 billion as of Nov. 7, up from about $4.6 billion in 2023, Forbes reported.
In late December 2023, the NBA approved Cuban’s sale of a controlling share of the Mavericks to the Adelson and Dumont families, who run Las Vegas Sands Corp., The Associated Press reported. Miriam Adelson was one of Trump’s largest individual donors, giving $100 million to political action committee Preserve America’s efforts to elect Trump, according to OpenSecrets.org.
Paste BN has previously debunked other baseless claims that originated with the SpaceX Fanclub account, including that ABC fired presidential debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, that Elon Musk announced an "anti-woke" TV show with Tucker Carlson and that Coca-Cola ended a Taylor Swift sponsorship deal over Kamala Harris endorsement.
Paste BN reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Our fact-check sources:
- Paste BN, Oct. 19, Scenes from Mark Cuban's town hall for the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz campaign in AZ
- Paste BN, Oct. 31, This NBA team owner among richest donors of this election cycle. How much has she given?
- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Oct. 17, Takeaways from VP Kamala Harris' campaign stops in Milwaukee, La Crosse, Green Bay
- SpaceX Fanclub, Nov. 2, Facebook post
- Esspots, Nov. 2, Mark Cuban’s Net Worth Drops by $1 Billion After His Big Endorsement: “Go Woke Go Broke”
- Forbes, accessed Nov. 7, Mark Cuban
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