Mark Cuban says Donald Trump’s billionaire tech backers think ‘they can manipulate him’

Former President Donald Trump’s Silicon Valley backers don’t really support his bid for the White House, according to Mark Cuban — they just think they can control him.

“I think they believe they can manipulate him,” Cuban said earlier this week during an interview with Brian Tyler Cohen. “I think they understand that he’s so transactional and so devoid of core values that anything that they want they can manipulate him to get.”

Several prominent tech leaders, many of whom have ties to crypto, have endorsed or financially supported Trump recently through aligned political action committees. That includes Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, the Winklevoss twins, and the owners of Andreessen Horowitz — Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz — among others.

Cuban,  who has quickly become one of the loudest voices advocating for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, has previously taken aim at Trump’s wealthy backers, calling their support a “Bitcoin play.”

“Watching what’s happening in Silicon Valley is insane,” Cuban said last month in an interview with The Daily Show host Jon Stewart. “It’s not so much a support thing. It’s more like a takeover thing, trying to put themselves in a position to have as much control as possible.”

As for Musk specifically, Cuban said he’s backing the former president because “having the power to manipulate the most powerful man in the world is far more valuable in the world than any amount of [electric vehicle] sales from Tesla.”

“Elon is all in [on Trump],” Cuban added. “That’s why I like to f— with him on Twitter.” The two men frequently criticize each other, especially on social media. Cuban recently said he would be interested in buying X (META), formerly Twitter, and Fox News (FOXA) if he had the cash to do so.

Cuban also called Trump the “most unethical” and “dishonest” individual he’s ever worked with. Although it’s not exactly clear what business he is referring to, the Shark Tank star initially supported Trump’s 2016 campaign and has said he spoke with him multiple times across his term in office.

The billionaire — who has signed at least two pledges to support Harris, one featuring prominent former and current business executives and another designed for venture capitalists — has promoted the vice president as staunchly pro-business and a political moderate. Her economic plan, according to Goldman Sachs (GS), would be a boon to the U.S. economy, thanks to new spending and tax credits aimed at middle-income Americans.

Cuban said Harris “has some work to do in terms of “ the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Gary Gensler and the Federal Trade Commission’s Lina Khan. Some major Democratic donors have called for a Harris administration to fire Khan and Gensler, who have been tough on cryptocurrency firms and antitrust matters, respectively.

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