Mark Cuban has been one of the most vocal critics of Donald Trump in the NBA. But one of his biggest business partners has reportedly made the largest donation to Trump of any owner in American sports.
The family of Miriam Adelson, who bought the majority of the Dallas Mavericks from Cuban in December 2023, has donated $100 million to her Preserve America political action committee backing Trump’s presidential campaign, according to Front Office Sports. That number is the largest political donation of any owner in the NBA, NFL, MLB or WNBA.
Trump was reportedly hoping for much more, according to the New York Times, as the former president was expecting closer to $250 million.
Adelson has also reportedly spent “tens of millions” more to support Republicans in congressional races around the country.
The Adelson family are majority shareholders in Las Vegas Sands, with Patrick Dumont serving as president and chief operating officer of the company. Forbes estimates that Adelson and her family have a net worth of $32.3 billion, making her the 44th-richest person and the fifth-richest woman in the world.
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Dallas Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban walks off the court after the Mavericks loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder at the American Airlines Center. (Jerome Miron/USA Today Sports)
The NBA’s Board of Governors approved the sale of the controlling interest in the organization from Mark Cuban to the families in January 2024, for around $3.5 billion. Cuban retained about a quarter of the organization in the sale.
An active supporter of Harris, Cuban has been dedicating much of his own time and nearly his entire presence on social media to advocating for her policies and debating against Trump’s with various users. Cuban has gone so far as to follow others in Democrat circles by calling Trump a fascist amid recent mainstream media comparisons of the 45th U.S. president to Adolf Hitler and his supports to that of the Nazis in recent weeks.
“Donald Trump is not a normal candidate,” Cuban told Jonathan Karl in a recent ABC interview. “And I think it’s not a stretch to call Donald Trump a fascist.
“He’s talking about the enemy within and going after people using the military. He’s talked about mass deportations where they’ll stop people on the street and check their papers. What does that remind you of? Talking about knocking on doors and pulling people out and deporting them, what does that remind you of? That’s pretty damn close to fascism, if not the definition of fascism.”
But despite such vehement rhetoric against the former president, Cuban defended his business relationship with the Trump megadonor in a recent interview on FOX 5 Dallas.
“Do you know how everyone is voting who you work with? Do you know how the owners of your company are voting? This is America. People get to choose their candidates and vote who they want, and that’s what makes it amazing,” Cuban said. “I’ve talked with my partners about it, and they don’t have an issue. They choose what they choose.”
According to public records, Cuban has not given money to political candidates in decades, and he said recently that he hasn’t given Harris “a penny” despite his support.
However, Cuban has gone to very distant lengths in his quest to help prevent Trump from getting elected.
Cuban recently engaged in a multi-thread debate with multiple X users, including 24-year-old former college swimmer and conservative activist Riley Gaines over criticisms of Vice President Kamala Harris’ handling of the southern border.
MARK CUBAN SLAMMED BY KNICKS STAR JALEN BRUNSON OVER COMMENTS ABOUT HIS PARENTS
Mark Cuban speaks at a campaign rally for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, in La Crosse, Wis., Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (Abbie Parr/Associated Press)
Cuban, who has been a staunch advocate for Harris, Joe Biden in 2020 and Hillary Clinton in 2016, has defended the VP’s record on the border. Cuban even said he thinks the actions she has taken to reduce the flow of illegal migrants across the southern border “have actually worked” in a recent CNBC interview.
Cuban’s defense of Harris and Democrats has ramped up in recent weeks. He has done several interviews endorsing the VP in the upcoming election, making statements that have raised eyebrows from conservative voters. Cuban has suggested Trump is “a socialist” and even said he believes the mainstream media “leans right” in a recent CNBC interview.
Earlier this year, when Biden was still the presumptive Democratic nominee, Cuban went so far as to say he would vote for Biden over Trump even if Biden was “being given his last rites.”
“If they were having his last wake, and it was him versus Trump, and he was being given last rites, I would still vote for Joe Biden,” Cuban told Bloomberg News in March.
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Mark Cuban and Donald Trump at a press conference to officially announce the Affliction M-1 Global “Trilogy” at Trump Tower on June 3, 2009 in New York City. (Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage)
However, Cuban has also said he supported Trump at the outset of the former president’s first candidacy in 2015.
Cuban has said he supported the former president when Trump initially launched his first presidential campaign in 2015. Cuban elaborated on his initial support of Trump during an interview with Vivek Ramaswamy on X on August 7.
“In 2015, I was like, ‘He’s great. He’s not a typical Stepford candidate.’ I thought that was a positive,” Cuban said. “A big part of that is I didn’t think he had a chance. I just wanted to kind of screw things up in traditional politics, which I’m not a fan of.”
“I don’t care what his actual positions are,” Cuban also wrote of Trump in a post on his own social media app project “Cyberdust” in July 2015. “I don’t care if he says the wrong thing. He says what’s on his mind. He gives honest answers rather than prepared answers. This is more important than anything any candidate has done in years.”
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