Mark Cuban: Business leaders worried about Trump ‘retribution’ or ‘vengeance’

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban said Monday he thinks business leaders fear “retribution” and “vengeance” from former President Trump and are therefore not criticizing the Republican nominee more in the public arena.

In an interview on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the “Shark Tank” cast member outlined the reasons he said business leaders should support Vice President Harris over Trump. He also agreed with Maddow that Trump should be “radioactive” in the business community after, according to the MSNBC host, he spent some of his first term “targeting businesses because of what were perceived to be his political interests.”

“Well, 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 told Maddow.

“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,” he continued.

Cuban, now a surrogate for the Harris campaign, laid out the case for the Democratic nominee, saying Trump provided no stability, which can be difficult to manage when running a business.

“I mean, there’s really no good reason to vote for Donald Trump as the business candidate. In doing business, whether you’re a small company or a very large company, you want stability. You don’t want to wake up one morning as the CEO of John Deere and find out all of a sudden you have got a 200 percent tariff,” Cuban said.

“You don’t want to be Carrier air and find out that he’s threatening you if you move employees. Those are the types of decisions that take years to plan in and put together. And so stability is the number one rule for a big business. And for a smaller business, you just want the opportunity,” he added.

The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign.

Trump has consistently performed better than Harris in polls surveying voters on which candidate they trust more to handle the economy.

A recent Gallup poll showed 54 percent of respondents said Trump would do a better job handling the economy. Fifty-two percent also said the economy is “extremely important” in determining which candidate they will support on Election Day.