Mark Cuban's War on Drug Prices: 'How Much Fucking Money Do I Need?'

When Mark Cuban is feeling spicy, he’ll always let you know. The billionaire businessman, basketball owner, and Shark Tank empresario lit up WIRED’s The Big Interview event on Tuesday, dropping hot takes about Elon Musk, the pharmaceutical industry, and why he thinks “couch fucking” and Gary Gensler’s crypto policy cost Kamala Harris the election.

Chatting with WIRED senior writer Lauren Goode, Cuban touted the trajectory of Cost Plus Drugs, the pharmaceutical company he cofounded in 2022. By offering transparency on costs and pricing policies, Cuban says his company has been able to disrupt the drug industry, offering consumers drugs like Droxidopa for something like $20 per month versus the more than $3,000-a-month uninsured patients were being quoted.

“We’ve lowered the price of [one of our 2,500 medications] every single weekday for 18 months,” Cuban boasted, saying the company has also found great success in publishing its entire price list, something that’s always been incredibly hard to obtain from other drug providers for consumers and researchers alike.

Now, Cuban says, studies have come out showing that if Medicare bought, for instance, 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 healthcare system but also the tangible effect that one well-funded company can have.

It’s not that Cuban’s not making money on Cost Plus Drugs, either, because he is. He could be making more, he told Goode, but as he put it, “How much fucking money do I need? I’m not trying to land on Mars.”

The crack, presumably directed at Elon Musk, was just one of several remarks Cuban made about the billionaire X owner. For one, he spoke about his own move from X to Bluesky in recent months, saying that he thinks it’s an overall “existential moment” for Musk’s platform.

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

Mark Cuban and Lauren Goode at The Big InterviewPhotograph: Tristan deBrauwere