Mark Cuban Says Kamala Harris’s Capital Gains Tax Plan Would ‘Kill the Stock Market,’ Defends Her Anyway Against Skeptical CNBC Hosts

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban admitted Vice President Kamala Harris’s capital gains tax plan would “kill the stock market,” but defended the candidate against a pair of skeptical CNBC hosts.

Cuban joined Squawk Box’s Andrew Ross Sorkin and Rebecca Quick by phone on Thursday and revealed he’s been speaking directly with Harris’s campaign three to four times a week to consult on economic policies. Though the Shark Tank investor is not a fan of Harris’s current plan to tax unrealized capital gains, he called Harris “open-minded” and argued the current plan is a starting point.

Harris has faced bipartisan opposition to a plan to impose a 25% tax on unrealized capital gains for anyone with a net worth over $100 million. Critics have argued that such a plan would negatively impact future private investment potential and put a massive burden on startup companies.

“What I told them is if you tax unrealized gains, you’re going to kill the stock market, and it’s going to be the ultimate employment plan for private equity because companies are not going to go public because you can get whipsawed,” Cuban said.

Cuban explained that when a company is first started, it’s easy to be “cash poor” but rich in equity.

“Based off the unrealized gains, I would have had to borrow money and I effectively would have been in hawk just to pay my tax bill instead of trying to run my company,” he said.

Cuban argued Harris is generally looking for a way to tax the wealthy “fairly.”

“Even though [Harris] is not directly conflicting the Biden tax plan, to her her value proposition is, we need to tax everybody fairly,” he said.

Quick pushed back on the positively, suggesting the campaign could simply be telling Cuban what he wants to hear.

“I appreciate you calling in and telling us what you’re hearing on these fronts, that’s great, but as you said yourself, you can’t speak for the vice president. These are things they’re telling you. Who knows what they’re telling other people. My guess is they’re telling anybody who is donating to them exactly what they want to hear at this point,” she said.

“No, no, no, no. Absolutely, positively not,” Cuban replied.

“Why do you think they’re telling you the truth and not telling other people other people other things? If they won’t say it publicly. Say it publicly so we can hold you to it,” Quick said.

“I get it, but you’ve got to get the details right,” Cuban said.

“Yeah, but we have 60 days until an election!” Quick shot back.

The CNBC host said she doesn’t want “everybody to trade on what we think and what we feel.”

“Like any good CEO, you’ve got to do it when you get it right. Not because your customer is yelling, ‘well, we’re waiting on new pricing,'” Cuban said.

Sorkin jumped in to ask what a reasonable timeline for a concrete economic policy should be. Though Cuban admitted the plan would “kill the stock market,” he argued that the unrealized gains tax plan is overblown and not a big priority because it directly affects only a small portion of voters.

“The number of people this truly impacts is less than 1% of the voting population and so this is not number one priority for her, it’s not, in terms of speaking about it and getting the word out. She wanted to talk about entrepreneurs, startups, founders first,” he said. “The people like me in my position, we’re not at the top of the list. We’re closer to the bottom, so we’re not going to get that full, detailed disclosure first, and I’m okay with that.”

Watch above via CNBC .