Mark Cuban’s war on drug prices: ‘How much fucking money do I need?’

When Mark Cuban feels spicy, he will always let you know. The billionaire businessman, owner of a basketball club and Shark tank impresario lit up WIRED’s The Big Interview event on Tuesday, dropping heated comments about Elon Musk, the pharmaceutical industry and why he thinks Gary Gensler’s “couch screwing” and crypto politics cost Kamala Harris the election.

Speaking with WIRED senior writer Lauren Good, Cuban outlined the trajectory of Cost Plus Drugs, the pharmaceutical company he co-founded in 2022. By offering transparency about costs and pricing policies, Cuban says his company has been able to disrupt the drug industry, offering consumers drugs like Droxidopa for as little as $20 a month versus more than $3,000 a month uninsured patients were quoted.

“We have reduced the price of [one of our 2,500 medications] every weekday for 18 months,” Cuban boasted, saying the company has also had great success publishing its entire price list, something that has always been incredibly difficult to obtain from other consumer drug providers and researchers.

Now, Cuban says, studies have come out that show that if Medicare bought, say, nine specific drugs from Cost Plus Drugs instead of their other sources, the government would save billions of dollars, something that not only shows the bloat of the health care system, but the tangible effect a well-funded company can have.

Not that Cuban isn’t making money from Cost Plus Drugs, too, because he is. It can do morehe told Goode, but as he said, “How much fucking money do I need? I’m not trying to land on Mars.

The crack, possibly aimed at Elon Musk, was just one of several remarks Cuban made about billionaire owner X. On the one hand, he talked about his own switch from X to Bluesky in recent months, saying he thought it was an overall “existential moment” for Musk’s platform.

Because of Bluesky’s troll-blocking capabilities and what Cuban calls more favorable policies, he says he’s found it much easier to engage there, whether it’s Kamala Harris, cryptocurrency or the Dallas Mavericks team. Mavericks, in which he owns a minority stake. “If you want to know what Elon’s thinking, Twitter is amazing,” Cuban joked, but added that he thinks Bluesky is more of a true “social network” in comparison.